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Voters trust good-looking extremists
Trying to appear moderate is not always the best strategy for capturing votes during an election, reveals a new study. Extreme positions can build trust among an electorate, who value ideological commitment in times of uncertainty.
Here is the full story, with a hat tip to Eduardo Pegurier. And here's Robin Hanson:
In a TV game show, pretty contestants were not better or more cooperative players, but other contestants seemed to act as if they were.
I don't know much about the substance or qualifications of Sarah Palin, but I believe that Democrats should be a little worried right now. The otherwise-expected Romney and Pawlenty gifts have been taken off the table.
Addendum: Here's Palin talking economics with Larry Kudlow.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 29, 2008 at 03:29 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
She is very attractive. And in a very cute, feisty way.
Posted by: thehova at Aug 29, 2008 3:38:56 PM
So you're basically saying Ron Paul is really really ugly. And I thought you guys were above ad hominem attacks here...
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Aug 29, 2008 3:40:08 PM
Given the headline chasing movements of the republican veep stocks on intrade, I think it's interesting that that the Obama/McCain stocks are holding steady at 60/40 last I checked, well into this Palin news cycle. I have no idea if that'll hold up, but so far news cycles haven't affected the 60/40 spread much.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous at Aug 29, 2008 3:42:21 PM
The Democrats should be worried because (1) the VP nominees matter soooo much, and (2) Barack Obama is a much better-looking man than is John McCain?
Posted by: Jason Briggeman at Aug 29, 2008 3:42:23 PM
Jason,
McCain is a heart-throb to the elder lady voters. And they vote more...
Posted by: CJS at Aug 29, 2008 4:12:23 PM
The Democrats should be a little worried? Why? They aren't the ones who have picked Dan Quayle a second time.
Posted by: RCinProv at Aug 29, 2008 4:27:54 PM
Fidel Obama is worried now. He should have picked Hilary....
Posted by: jorod at Aug 29, 2008 6:40:54 PM
Most of Palin's discussion of "economics" is just about the oil industry and drilling in ANWR and offshore.
She even followed through and actually implemented McCain's nutty demagoguery to suspend the gas tax (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/08/mccain-veep-pick-is-not-member.html)
It doesn't look like Palin will do much to tamp down the "Grand Oil Party" association that Bush & Cheney fostered so effectively.
Posted by: a student of economics at Aug 29, 2008 7:07:41 PM
CJS,
Any man alive over 80 is a heart throb for the older ladies, just ask anyone at a nursing home. The gender ratio at that age don't favor the women.
Posted by: steven c. at Aug 29, 2008 7:09:00 PM
"The Democrats should be a little worried? Why? They aren't the ones who have picked Dan Quayle a second time."
Yes they did his last name is Biden ,158 of 163 , in a third tier law school
Posted by: k at Aug 29, 2008 9:26:25 PM
a student of economics wrote:
She even followed through and actually implemented McCain's nutty demagoguery to suspend the gas tax...
"Nutty" because it won't lower prices at the pump? This seems like a good experiment. Let's pick a metric, say, the spread between average Alaskan unleaded of standard grade, versus the national average. I think it will be smaller over September 2008, but compared to what? The spread in September 2007, or the spread in August 2008?
I guess we should look at what that spread typically does from August to September in previous years, to be able to roughly assign an influence to the gas tax removal.
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Aug 29, 2008 9:59:07 PM
"feed these hungry markets"
stop with the talking points already. being pretty and in vogue does not make one worth listening to.
Posted by: samson at Aug 30, 2008 3:04:39 AM
Bob, it's nutty because everyone, including the GOP, agrees that we should conserve more and encourage alternative energy to reduce dependence on oil.
The Palin/McCain approach is a specially designed tax break that citizens forfeit if they switch from SUVs to bicycles or find other ways to conserve. Oddly, it is increased if they switch to Hummers and choose to waste more gas in other ways. It puts money in the pockets of foreign oil importers and OPEC and encourage sending more money abroad and more dependence on unstable energy sources. It hurts the profits of developers of alternative energy and discourages their activities. All else equal, it leads to higher taxes on work and investment to make up for the shortfall, discouraging those activities. As an added bonus, it adds to pollution, traffic fatalities and yes, global climate change.
McCain was unable to find any economist, even conservative ones, who would defend his proposal. Most believe it is exactly 180 degrees from what we should be doing.
It would be very hard to think of worse economics or worse public policy on this issue than what Palin and McCain advocate.
It's a pretty clean, direct test of whether a politician is a demagogue or has a serious interest in governing.
Posted by: a student of economics at Aug 30, 2008 12:59:09 PM
As I pointed out over at Overcoming Bias when Robin Hanson posted that study, television game shows such as Survivor show a disclaimer at the end stating that the shows producers consulted with the contestants on their decisions. The data that television viewers prefer to watch attractive people is absolute, so we have to assume that part of the reason why contestants behave that way is that it is in the absolute interest of the game show that they do so.
Posted by: James Feldman at Aug 31, 2008 1:18:58 AM
What James Feldman said. I thought that Robin Hanson's claim had been thoroughly debunked; I'm surprised to see it repeated here.
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