News India-Times

The question is not whether we agree with these views: Politicians stake out such positions precisely because they strike a chord with many voters. The question is why we like our bromides so simple - especially when the same promises have been offered to us time and again in previous elections.

In an unusual study analyzing State of the Union addresses like the one President Bush gave on January 28 night, psychologists found a curious pattern in the speeches delivered by 41 U.S. presidents. The pattern explains a lot about why politicians like Romney and others talk to voters the way they do.

The study found that in the first three years after a new president takes office, his speeches displayed higher levels of complexity compared with addresses in the fourth year in office. In the first three speeches, presidents were more likely to acknowledge other points of view, potential pitfalls and unintended consequences. In the fourth year, however - as they were about to run for re-election - the complexity of their speeches plunged.

Not only that, but American presidents who showed a sharper decline in complexity were more likely to be re-elected than those who continued to acknowledge that the challenges facing the nation were complex.

"Low complexity wins elections," said psychologist Lucian Gideon Conway III of the University of Montana at Missoula, who published his analysis of the presidential speeches in the journal Political Psychology. "People like simple answers, and someone saying, `I don't have all the answers and here are five possibilities' is a hard sell compared to someone who says, `I have a plan and it is going to work and my opponent is completely wrong.' "

The result is a paradox. Politicians offer simplistic solutions in order to win elections. But to govern, they must quickly ratchet up their complexity because they confront costs, consequences and compromises. But when up for reelection, it's time to dumb things down again.

The principal beneficiaries of this back and forth dance aren't voters, but satirists such as Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" who never have to search very hard to find glaring examples of hypocrisy and pandering.

Conway acknowledged that there could be alternate explanations for the phenomenon that he and co-author Felix Thoemmes, a graduate student now at Arizona State University in Tempe, observed: One is that State of the Union addresses are not a very good indicator of presidential thinking, especially given the increased role of speechwriters in recent decades. Or, he said, the rise and fall in presidential complexity during a first term could merely reflect the mental strain of being president - after doing a lot of complex thinking for two or three years, they just get tired by the fourth year.

Matthew Scully, who worked on Bush's first four State of the Union addresses, rejected the idea that presidents merely mouth what speechwriters put on paper. These speeches, he said, largely reflect what presidents want to say. Bush, for example, appears to be deeply involved in all stages of speech preparation and editing. Scully offered an alternate explanation for the phenomenon: By the president's fourth year in office, many issues on his agenda may have become law or been shot down. Either way, presidents have a smaller - and simpler - platter of issues at that point.

Labels: State of the Union speeches, US Presidential Elections

# posted by PressMart Team @ 10:57 PM