Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Female voters: Did anyone see tonight's debate on CNN that tracked the immediate reactions of men and women as the debate proceeded? It gave me a lot of insight into the minds of female voters. It is clear that they like positive plans and promises and happy talk in general. Numbers went way down when candidates went negative.

Without a doubt women prefer Obama, but why? I got the impression that women love coolness--a man who will absolutely not be ruffled. When it comes to a man, women like a rock. The Marlboro Man. That combined with a resonant baritone voice signals masculinity and leadership. McCain's emotionality, along with a nasal voice, is less attractive. The various arguments seemed much less important than these qualities. I'm not sure about this, but it seems like women, compared to men, base their votes more on one's likeability and the niceness of one's positions.

I assumed that women don't read this blog because they are less interested in politics and numbers, but they must be at least as turned off by its harshness.

9 comments:

  1. I think that's definitely true.

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  2. That's one (of several) reason it's so hard to cut off immigration as women gain power. You have to be harsh to those with a positive dream. The natives who are hurt are mostly invisible ... just jobless or low income and it's not transparent that immigration causes those problems.

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  3. Anonymous10:02 AM

    Women might prefer Obama for a couple other reasons:

    1. He selected his wife for brains rather than beauty.
    2. McCain ditched his first wife after she became disabled and married a hot, wealthy, younger woman.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:06 AM

    "He selected his wife for brains rather than beauty."

    Nah, Obama selected his wife primarily for her race rather than brains or beauty. Or at least the best compromise he could find between the three given his statistically rare profile.

    Michelle probably has an IQ of 105-110. Which is 30-40 points lower than Obama. That gap is way too big for any man that selected his wife "for intelligence". Any random woman selected from Harvard would have been a lot smarter.


    http://www.vdare.com/sailer/080225_michelle_obama.htm

    The white girl from the influential family who Obama dumped because she was white likely had a much higher IQ than Michelle.

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  5. I saw this too, in fact my blog references it. You can see my here.

    Basically, younger White Women ALWAYS go for the dominant, Alpha Male. Naomi Wolfe got a lot of ridicule, for her statements about Al Gore, but she was right.

    Older, married women think differently however. They worry about Affirmative Action impacting them. Younger White women don't, and base their decisions on who is the biggest Big Man.

    This is why Dems always try to roll out the JFK style magic. Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, Gore and Kerry had beta male flop sweat all over them. Clinton and Obama are the Big Man that women love. Which is why men hate them. It was interesting that according to the WSJ men have not budged from McCain even though the economy has gone into the toilet.

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  6. Women have a tendency not to think. Not news.

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  7. Anonymous10:33 PM

    I'm female, but I'd be surprised if more than 10% of your audience is female. Even 5% would be high, given the combination of mathiness and harshness.

    I'm highly atypical and I am very often the only woman in the room.

    -Elizabeth

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  8. Anonymous11:04 PM

    That's one (of several) reason it's so hard to cut off immigration as women gain power.

    The same reason why it's difficult to get anything "conservative" done.

    Women aren't stupid, so the happy-talkers do need to provide some sort of rationale for why their wild schemes can be expected to work. Conservatives like to pick apart such rationale, but for women, the rationale alone is enough to clinch it: It sounds so good, so uplifting, so plausible, how can we not try it?

    That's why women are such suckers for personal development how-to-bring-out-the-inner-goddess gobbledygook. (I'm not attacking the idea of bettering oneself. It's the dogged insistence on the unachievable that grates on me.)

    Feminized men are like this, too. Not for them notions of contentment deriving from acceptance of limitaions. Thus we have communism, eductional romanticism, doctrinaire environmentalism etc.

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  9. Could be a combination of reasons:

    - Obama is younger and more attractive than McCain

    - A frequent remark I hear from women who like Obama is "He's not mad at anyone!" McCain seems mad at everyone. Women don't like people to be mad.

    - Women are more sympathetic to politicians who promise to help everyone, rather than those who promise to make it easier for people to help themselves.

    - Obama is married to his original wife and has two daughters. Women like that. McCain ditched his wife after she was in a disfiguring car accident and now has a younger, richer, more beautiful trophy wife.

    I am a woman, and I don't like Obama (don't much like McCain either but he is the lesser of two evils), but I am pretty atypical as you can infer from the fact that I read this blog.

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