how interested are you?

It’s almost here! Before we know it, election season will be over and we’ll have a new president! I for one, am ready for it to end. According to fivethirtyeight.com ‘Google Traffic Suggests McCain Not Grabbing Voters’ Attention’. The research suggests that the number of people searching Obama on google has increased drastically since mid October, whereas McCain has stayed level and consistently lower than Obama since the beginning of October. But can the results of Google search engine be any kind of predicter in who will win this election?

I find this interesting, especially in accordance with Drew Westen’s The Political Brain analysis of emotions deciding the outcome of the election. His theory is that while voters vote mostly in accordance with party lines, the personality and charisma of the candidate is increasingly important since World War II. The article on fivethirtyeight shows that the public is no longer interested in John McCain, or does not find him interesting enough to research. Especially since the emergence of television in politics, people tend to vote for the more charismatic candidate, the better looking and more passionate candidate. Judging from McCain and Obama’s appearances on tv, it’s easy to see who has the obvious advantage. Obama, a young captivating delivers messages of hope and inspiration. McCain, on the other hand, with his tongue flick, is not as appealing, especially for young voters.

I am led to wonder if people are more likely to vote for a party or a candidate. It seems clear to me that many people do not care about someone’s politics so much as his personality. When Clinton was the democratic candidate, he won, and obviously, he is full of charisma. In the next election, democrats chose Gore, then Kerry, both of whom are older, not as good looking, and generally thought of not to have as much personality and charisma. Did that many democrats change their minds for those elections and abandon their democratic beliefs? Not likely. Much more probably, the large pool of ‘undecided’ voters, decided on a more accessible candidate. If Obama wins this year’s election, I think that’s further proof that voters choose the candidate they find more charismatic and appealing.

Drew Westen and fivethirtyeight.com both fail to mention how big of a roll vice presidential candidates play in this equation. Although meant as a joke, I saw at least ten Sarah Palins this Halloween. I saw zero Obamas, zero McCains, and zero Bidens. It seems that Palin’s charisma tops Obamas, and she has become a celebrity of sorts since her nomination. This is a strange rivalry to me, because Palin’s charisma beats Obama’s, but his role beats hers. While the vice presidential candidate is important for the election of the president, I don’t think that the vp’s charisma is as important as the president’s during the debates and to the public. While the republicans got a lot of attention immediately after the nomination of Sarah Palin, the decline of interest shows that getting fast really good results is not as smart of an idea as getting steady good results.

Hopefully, the fivethirtyeight data about people’s interest in the candidate’s plays out in the election. There’s two days left, and not a lot the candidates can do to change people’s minds at this point (especially with early voting), so I’ll take it as a good sign that people are more interested in Obama than McCain, so let’s hope they all get out there and vote!