How much of politics is determined by irrational psychological forces?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. How the political opinions of most -- if not all -- people are much more strongly influenced by personal psychology than by reason, logic, or fact.

I know this is true in my case. Here's how I became a liberal: My parents were liberals, and I was very close with my parents, so there was no need for me to "rebel" and differentiate myself as an adult by choosing a radically different political stance. I matured early in some ways and felt from a very early age that it was unfair and evil that children were treated differently than adults. I wanted control of my life, I wanted to be able to make my own choices and not be looked down on and ordered about. This early obsession with fairness and equality, which was almost pathological and got me in a lot of trouble, made me a feminist, kept me from being a racist, and made me a liberal, because I always related to the outsiders and the fucked-over, rather than the folks in power.

So, in just about any argument, I am going to support the liberal position -- even at the expense of logic or consistency. That is to say, I will grasp at every straw to defend Bill Clinton's presidency against the Lewinsky stain, even as I use the infidelity of various Republicans as evidence of their moralizing hypocrisy. It seems to me that conservatives are the same way. They will make any argument to support their side, arguing simultaneously that Kerry is a "flip-flopper" with no personal beliefs or integrity and that somehow he is also "the most liberal Senator." How someone could be both? Doesn't seem possible.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm wondering how much can really be changed through public political argument and debate. I can count the number of times I have had my opinion changed by an internet message board argument on one hand. Usually everybody goes in and leaves with the same opinions. If a woman was raised not to respect herself and to believe that men should be in charge of her life, then she's going to vote Republican and Pro-Life and likely marry some abusive or at the very least insensitive prick. It takes a lot to make a person with that background change their mind.

Is politics in large part about psychological responses, emotion and passions that cannot be successfully argued against with any amount of logic and fact?

Identify as in "I identify with Bush." They vote based on which person they admire for various irrational reasons.

Advertisers have known this forever. The "marlboro man" is a great example of this kind of sell. Commercials almost never use a rational sell, they present people who are glamorous, good looking, and "cool," who are using the product, and suggest that you can be glamorous, good looking, and cool yourself, if you use the product.

GWB is a product, and its basically the marlboro man. Tough, squinting like clint eastwood, man of few words, like audie murphy. Plain spoking man of the people, mean what I say, tough it out. People dug it.

I do think people can and do change their positions but there obviously has to be a certain amount of openness to that in the first place.

There was a parenting website I frequented for years, no political affiliation to it. And I had my eyes opened to several things because of that website.

I'm a liberal because my parents taught me to question things and because my stepfather showed me what true compassion is supposed to look like and reinforced in me the idea that we are here to help each other, not tear each other down, and that government should be an agent of good, not harm.