Hearts, Not Minds: How Emotion Trumps Analysis on Obama, McCain

WP: Hearts, Not Minds
Polls Tell Them What Voters Think, But Moderators Say the Focus Group Reveals How Emotion Trumps Analysis
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008; C01

What if the 2008 presidential election were decided by voters acting not on their political judgments or analyses of the candidates, but on their emotions? In the view of some experts, this is a trick question -- of course the election will be decided emotionally. Elections always are....

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This year, (prominent Democratic pollster and focus group leader for three decades) Peter Hart is using focus groups to try to understand the presidential campaign as it unfolds. He has conducted five already and plans five more, all for the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. The latest was held Tuesday night in York, Pa., and it will be broadcast at 8 tonight on C-SPAN....

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No one in the group had anything good to say about the state of the nation. Only three had anything kind to say about President Bush....Hart was impressed by the comments of two...women who voted for Bush in 2004 but seemed open to voting for Obama in November...."If I were John McCain," Hart said on the morning after the focus group, "I'd be exceptionally nervous" after hearing these women's comments. "Those two people are terrible news for McCain....

But if Hart is right that these signs were discouraging for McCain, the York focus group also showed how fluid the presidential race remains, and "just how far from the finish line we are," in Hart's words. The discussion, which lasted nearly 140 minutes, demonstrated again and again how little the paricipants felt they knew about Obama or McCain. "I don't know enough" was the substance of many answers to Hart's queries.

In an effort to plumb their emotional reactions to both men, Hart fired a series of off-the-wall questions at the group: Imagine you are lost in a forest. Would you want Obama or McCain to help get you out? What kind of neighbor would McCain or Obama be? With which man would you choose to share an hour-long commute to work? Whom would you select to carry the American flag for the U.S. athletes marching in the opening ceremony of the Olympics?

Obama had fewer supporters than McCain on all of these questions, though only four of 12 said they leaned toward voting for McCain. This, said Hart, was evidence of the work Obama has to do to reassure voters that it would be safe and ultimately rewarding to vote for him. McCain is the relatively well-known quantity in the race, Obama still the newcomer. But Hart also noted how hard it was for members of the group to identify ways that McCain could win their votes in November....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901875_pf.html