How Conservatives and Liberals Think Part 2

A Tom Paine interview with the author of the new book: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think

Democrats tend to think of things in terms of one issue at a time, as opposed to thinking of a general progressive worldview, and how the issues fit in to that. Therefore, the Democratic Leadership Council wants more votes, they think, "Gee, we should move to the right to get more voters." Now you can't imagine the conservatives moving to the left to get more voters. They, in fact get more voters by staying on the right. There's a reason for that, and the reason is deep and important. There is a progressive worldview and a conservative worldview and language to express them, and there are about 35 to 38 percent of the voters on either side who are confirmed liberals or confirmed conservatives. Liberal candidates are not going to get less than 35, 34 percent -- something like that. Conservative candidates are not going to get less than that.

Now, the so-called "voters in the middle," are not in the middle. They are people who have both models, and use them in different parts of their lives. They may have had a strict father and a nurturant mother, or have somehow got both models.

The conservatives talk in a way that activates the conservative worldview, and it activates them, with these "voters in the middle" -- making them look at the world from more of a conservative perspective. What the progressives have to do is get them -- "the folks in the middle" -- to activate their progressive worldviews, and spread them over more issues. That is the way that you hold your base and extend it. The conservatives know this, the Democrats haven't a clue. They don't understand this yet.

This new book seems to be a continuation of Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't from 1997.

If your baby cries at night, do you pick him up? The answer to that question, suggests cognitive scientist Lakoff (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley), is the single best indicator of liberal or conservative values.