That's the title of a great column today by David Brooks.
It brings to the discussion of the current crazy primary season recent theories about decision making which suggest that though emotion plays a role in the decisions people make about candidates, emotional decisions are based on rational assessments of character. Each of the current candidates tap into something people react to within the two parties:
It is no accident that the major candidates in the Republican field are a pastor, a businessman and a war hero. These are the three most evocative Republican leadership models. Nor is it an accident that the Democratic race is a clash between a daughter of the feminist movement, a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and a self-styled proletarian. These are powerful Democratic categories.
Writers seem to increasingly see value in snap shot decisions, or at least not consider them completely irrational and the result of ignorance (think of the recent success of the book Blink). We may want to think this through when we consider Federalist objections to democracy.
