There is no pity vote

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

It is odd that a group as bathetically sentimental as American voters don't vote out of pity, but they happen not to. There is pity aplenty, yes, but no pity vote. Voters are pitiless.

Americans are all about attacking weakness and blaming the victim.

[Gman]

1. How do you then explain Obama commercials that show a lady

replacing her Hillary sign with an Obama sign because she doesn't like the (perceived) attacks on Obama? I think she's a good liberal that is now supporting a pitiful Obama.

[Lurking Dem]

3. You are confusing

pity for one candidate with disgust for another.

[ruggerson]

5. They're really running a commercial like that?

Jesus F. Christ. And this campaign has the fucking nerve to whine about Edwards and 527's?

Hillary's campaign should respond with an ad that has a voter replacing an Obama sign with a Clinton sign and saying "Obama keeps whining about negative attacks, all the while he continues negative campaigning. I just don't think he's tough enough."

The ad can be scored with some music from the "Embrace the Change" tour.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. I'm not suggesting nobody appeals to the pity vote, and

there may be individual pity votes to be had... it's not that nobody votes out of pity, but more people vote against pity... when you add it all up loathing of weakness more than counter-balances pity, so there is no net pity vote.

The ad you describe should end up benefiting Edwards and the lower tiers.

People can be made to think badly of Clinton for picking on a pathetic figure like Obama, but people are as disinclined to vote for a pathetic person as a mean person.

Dick Gephardt convinced Iowans that Howard Dean was unelectable, and they hated Gephardt for doing it. So the votes went to Kerry and Edwards. There should have been a big pity vote for Dean, but it didn't materialize.

[cali]

2. or blaming the victim and the attacker. n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. In a multi-candidate race, that's how it works.

In a two-person race it's close to a zero sum game, and the unfair attacker usually benefits. (People knew the swift-boat ads were crap, but that didn't make them ineffective.)

In a multi-candidate field attacker and victim can both lose.

And there are "group interest" cases where something akin to pity might work... one might cast a pity vote for someone in a group they identify with, but in that case they probably would have voted that wat anyway.

But the people who typically decide elections know little of the issues, and just sniff out weakness. It's a primal thing.

What was so bad about the Philly debate for Clinton was not that she was vague on the immigration thing. It was that she sounded so defensive and weak when Dodd challenged heron it.

[T Wolf]

4. Wrong. Amerikans do vote out of SELF-pity. All the time. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. Yes, the self-pity vote can never be over-estimated