ABSTRACT
I want to give you two people to think about. Let's call them Sam and Mary. Assume that they are both about fifty years old and have similar levels of education. It is October 2008 and both are sitting at home watching television and thinking about the presidential election that is one month away. While both stories below are fictional, decide which scenario is most realistic.
Sam is fifty years old and has almost always voted Republican because he feels that the Democrats are too wishy-washy when it comes to the international matters. He also believes that the Democrats are soft on crime. He did vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 because he liked the guy and felt that George H. W. Bush (the first one) was one of the reasons the economy was in such bad shape. He intends to vote for McCain, not because he sees anything particularly wrong with Obama but mostly because he feels that McCain is the better candidate. Sam is sitting in his living room watching American Idol (although he'd never admit it to his friends) when a commercial comes on for Obama. The commercial claims that the only way to lower taxes for the middle class is to raise taxes for the rich. He says to himself: “Hey, I like that. I've been backing the wrong guy. I'm going to vote for Obama.”
Mary likes Obama. She voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary but unlike some of her friends never became particularly angry at Obama about what happened during the primaries (“that's just politics”). She's sitting at home watching the news and a story comes on saying that Obama wants to have negotiations with Iran, and the item includes a slew of people who are arguing that such a move would be a huge mistake. “There they go again,” she says to herself, “Trying to find something bad to say about Obama.” She decided that the news was just annoying her, so she switched the channel and started watching American Idol.
