Well said/written. - Christopher Galtenberg

"So as much as I would like to think that I’m voting based on my knowledge of policies and issues, a big part of my decision is intuitive–my worldview is a prime mover of my political brain. And both campaigns know this. That’s why their strategies are tailored to the sensitivity of our feelings, emotions, and faith, rather than keeping themselves honest with the issues at hand." - Christopher Galtenberg

Agreed, although I dislike McCain quite a bit. :) - William Harryman

Support for your view - "Silvia Galdi at the University of Padova, Italy, has found evidence that the final verdicts of undecided decision-makers are only weakly related to their conscious preferences and more strongly influenced by unconscious views and biases they aren't aware of." http://tiny.pl/2zzl - William Harryman

@William. thanks for the link. bookmarked and added to my (hyper)stream :) - ~C4Chaos

via http://tiny.pl/2zzl -- "But what then of the painstaking deliberation process that many people go through to make decisions? Is there any point to lists of pros and cons, a reading of reviews, or a careful gathering of balanced viewpoints? Based on other studies, Galdi suggests that in many cases, these acts merely serve to confirm and support decisions that have already been unconsciously made." exactly. NNT calls this "confirmation bias." also covered it on this post - http://bit.ly/1ZfVQm - ~C4Chaos

The worst part was the CNN coverage after the Warren forum. The consensus was that Obama did poorly because his answers were nuanced and thoughtful. That constitutes doing poorly? It saddens me that "defeat evil" is the state of "effective" political discourse in this country. - mikepk

@Michael. i agree. i was left scratching my head too. then again, the assumption was that the target audience for the civil forum was evangelicals. so the analysis has merit. McCain did better, at least on attracting the *stereotypical* evangelical voters. but i have faith that many people in the evangelical community are more intelligent that what the media portray them to be. i hope. - ~C4Chaos