… [T]he assumption here is that even “low-information voters” will vote their economic interest if they get enough true economic facts and figures about their self-interest thrown at them.
There is reason to doubt this.
I recall a conversation I had with Richard Wirthlin, Ronald Reagan’s chief strategist. In Wirthlin’s first poll for Reagan, he found that most voters disliked Reagan’s policies, but wanted to vote for him. There was, he discovered, a set of related reasons: Reagan spoke about values and used issues only to illuminate values. Values trump policies. [cont.]
George Lakoff, UC Berkeley (San Francisco Chronicle)