How Much Does Our Idea of Something Being The Case Affect Our Voting Habits?

This is the wonderful season that happens every four years where Americans all get together to cheer on their candidates for the presidency, be forced to endure constant political ads during the nightly sitcoms, and have nothing but bickering between parties on their new channels. A lot of Americans get really heated about their candidates and beliefs for how this country should or shouldn't be heading, as much such they may disown their friends who just too liberal or just too conservative. We all do, we can admit it, we are among friends, so we hope. Something I was thinking about the other day is, just how much do we really feel that a candidates position will affect us in our daily lives? For me, and for many people I have talked to, especially the older generations who have been through many of these political seasons, they all say, no matter the guy the same old stuff happens and life really just goes on. I think its really hard for us young people to believe that, given our strong love or passionate hate for Mr. Obama over the past few years, but maybe they are right, maybe it doesn't really matter all that much to our daily lives if Mr. Obama were President or John McCain would have won the election. I generally think things would have been different, but who know really knows for sure.

What I am really interested in right now is now that there may be a difference between who the President is so much, but really how Americans vote. In economics, there is multiple ways to value what people desire and what they are willing to pay of it. The first is called use value, the value one will get from the use of a good/service. The second is called existence value, which derives from the idea that there will be some form of value with the idea that the good/service is existing, even though that person will never utilize that good/service. Finally, there is option value, which comes from the value one may have to something that they can have the option of utilizing in the future. I got to thinking, is this possibly how American voters cast their ballots on measures and / or candidates? I think there really may be a link here.

Say for example you are a member of the homosexual community, a candidate that supports same-sex marriage is probably going to make your use value really high in that candidate because he elements your aspirations. Now suppose you just generally like the idea that a candidate who would support same-sex marriage, it fits your general perspective on society even though you yourself are heterosexual. Finally assume yourself as a person who has a friend who is gay, that someday they may have the option of marrying their spouse, that is option value. This is just one example, it can be the case if you're a farmer who supports a candidate who pledges more corn subsides, or just a person that has a general opinion that subsides for corn production is a good stance and has existence value to it. This also goes a lot for environmental policies. Many people will not be able to travel to our countless environmental treasures in our country, but the thought on them being destroyed due to current actions is just not something you are comfortable with. In the end, as someone's total willingness to pay is compromised of use value + existence value + and option value, I think these values also sum for voting decisions.

I think we all generally have assumed this in our pasts when we vote, but maybe not realized the possible economic intuition behind it. What I did want to comment on is that when we set an imbalance on our values of a candidates position it can possibly create policy that is not beneficial to society as a whole. If all Americans were to vote solely on use values, things that only apply to a small segment of society, it could impose a large cost on the rest of society, that may spread widespread lower utility for all people. On the other hand, if we vote as an existence value only in that we vote to have a belief this country should only be homogenous in values structure we diminish individual liberties. Thus an equilibrium of sorts needs to be element in our voting decisions.

Additionally, I wonder just how much Americans assign value to a candidate. Do we lean more to the use value, of what may affect us directly or do we assign a higher existence value to issues, in that we believe our nation ought to be this way? Do we vote because candidates project an image of being one or the other, or are we voting because we like their stances on specific issues? It is said in political science, the best candidates are the ones who project and image, and once they begin to speak on specifics of an issue, their favorability goes down. Just look at how the G.O.P. primaries have gone. Arguably the most vocal candidates on the issues, have been Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Jon Huntsman, both of which are unlikely to win the nod, especially Huntsman who dropped out a good time ago. On the other hand, look at the sudden surges of Rick Perry or Michele Bachman, seldom people knew the specifics of what their policy would be, but they knew what they were projecting and they bought in. Is that assigning a use or existence value to these candidates?

My guess is that Americans spend far more time on existence value than what issues directly affect them. It goes for the person who supports or rejects same-sex marriage even though they are in a heterosexual marriage, it goes for the person who thinks the environment of a forest should be used for resources or preserved for future generations that lives in New Mexico, or the person who believes their religion should be the moral of the land or then person who believes in their higher being but thinks everyone should have the right to decide. It goes for us all.

So while you're voting this election year, think about how you are voting, and what values you associate value to each decision. Finally ask yourself, is this the best for my image of America, or is this decision best for this country?

Candidates Should Focus on The Independents If They Want To Win

By the looks of it, the election this fall could be one of the most polarizing ones in recent memory, with the notable exception of the Bush / Gore election of 2000 that involved many other issues surrounding the outcome. Given that, who ever will win the election for president this far, whether it be Barack Obama or any of his G.O.P. contenders, most likely being Mitt Romney, it stands that those who vote will roughly evenly split the sides. I wouldn't even be very surprised by the outcome of a close 50/50 race, maybe dispersing to 45/55 race. We are all pretty sure its going to be close. A recent poll from the Washington Post taken soon after Obama delivered his State of the Union address showed that in a general election Obama shows a strong edge over Mitt Romney. This differential was a 52% to 37% Obama to Romney respectively. Nevertheless, this margin is likely to dissipate a bit as the campaign goes on.

What I think will be the key to this election is not necessarily focusing on inspiring your own party to vote for you as a candidate, but those who are independent and possibly an undecided vote. Of course in any election this has been a focus, but I think that this is as important as any time in history. Due the polarizing parties, people are turned off to each sides respective agendas, so much that very few Democrats will likely vote for a Republican, and vice versa. Thus the people who will likely be the deciders of this election are those who do not identify strongly to either side. While the quantity of these people is smaller than each respective party, whoever captures more of these voters given this near 50/50 split will win the election in my opinion.

Further, I believe Obama has the unique position compared to his candidate rivals to sway independent voters. He is the one setting the policy agenda from the executive branch currently and his policy outcomes will determine just how beneficial or detrimental he makes it for independents. Additionally, he has the ability to politically craft policy towards these important votes. As was evidenced by the very middle of the road and compromising policy of contraception requirements for religious institutions. Obama captured a lot of positive sentiments from the Catholic Bishops in disagreement and from the Planned Parenthoods of the nation in agreement. If he continues to do this over the next few months, he just may have enough to sway independents to his side.

Lastly, Republicans have spent a majority of their respective campaigns pushing their strengths on being a conservative candidate and whether they really are that conservative in policy or not is later to be determined, but what it has done is paint an image of neo-conservatism that may be an extreme that many independents are not going to be pleased with. This is one of the externalities of this long primary season. As soon as the G.O.P. finally decides on a candidate, it has to be priority number one to capture independents, which will mean carefully crafting language to balance extreme right policy with middle of the road policy. Not an easy task. So the deeper into the season Republicans go, the deeper their hole will be.

So to the G.O.P. and Mr. Obama, if you are going to win this election you are going to need to appeal to people like me, the independents. Good luck gentlemen.

Critical Aspects of Republican Victory in November

At this current point in the election process I am going to predict that the republicans will lose the Presidential race to President Obama. I say this because of what I see as the most important factor causing detriment to the GOP, it is a lack of unity. Divided among conservatives, moderates, and a far reaching freshman Tea Party, the GOP has little in the sense of high correlation of ideas in the senate or house of representatives. The dispersion between ideologies will fraction the party too much for a collective to actually beat Obama, especially among independent voters. Further, I disagree with Newt Gingrich when he claims that having this process of working out a candidate is a good one for the party. Santorum to Romney, now to Gingrich. This is a problem if you want a candidate to beat an incumbent president. Of course it is early, but even so, Florida and the subsequent primaries are only going to get more heated, exposing these candidates to their flaws and giving more room for Democrats with their massive campaign treasury expected to reach a billion dollars to win. At this point, even if Republicans were to pick a candidate in say Romney, it is well known that the other fraction of the party is against his more liberal-eastern coast-Republican mindset, being from Massachusets, and doing the seemingly dastardly thing of creating a universal healthcare plan, not to mention, he's Mormon and there has never been a Mormon president. The fact remains, for every strength the Republican candidates have, they have just as many flaws for voters of both the Republican party view and Democratic. Because of these fractions and a lack of a candidate to bring about a cohesion of republican ideals, I believe independents along with some Republicans will just choose their lesser of two evils strategy and vote for Obama. The national polls show Obama beating almost every one of these candidates currently, when that billion dollar campaign comes rolling into town, it will get even further apart. Possibly the worst thing about this for all Americans is that in our time of need, in any case of who gets elected this country will not have a unified political system, and will continue to lack a true leader. This is a problem that is only going to get worse.