Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

With hostility on the rise at McCain rallies, I’ve started to wonder who he thinks he’s appealing to. An interview on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show confirmed my fear – that the people headed to these rallies lately are mostly “wingnuts”.

OK, so I’m a psychologist, and I think like one. You’ve heard of the bell curve, right? Well, it shows the distribution of any given measure across a population. So like any parameter, intelligence follows this pattern. In other words, most people have average intelligence. The way standardized IQ tests are normed means that you can say that roughly 68% of people have an IQ that falls between 85 and 115 (in the Average range). That also means that 84% of people have IQ’s that are in the Average range or higher. I know what Average IQ looks like from giving hundreds of IQ tests, and I’m not seeing it in the videos I’ve been watching of people outside these McCain rallies.

I’ve been saying for a while that I feel like McCain is alienating intelligent Republicans. Given some of the videos I’ve seen and reports I’ve read in the last week, a lot of the people who are going to these rallies lately are people I would argue are NOT typical Americans. Saying that Obama is a Muslim or an Arab or a terrorist… that isn’t something even a CRAZY person of average or better intelligence says, unless they are delusional. And most people are not.

He’s even alienating long-time Republicans. As is presented in the clip above, Frank Schaeffer writes:

If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as “not one of us,” I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

I feel like McCain is doing a great job appealing to the bottom 16th percentile – that part to the left of the blue in the bell curve displayed above. And “shoring up” the bottom 16th percentile isn’t going to win him any elections. There’s just not enough population there.

Let me tell you what I’m not saying: I’m not saying that people who are voting for McCain are stupid. But I think that their support for him must come from the work he’s done in his political life BEFORE the last few weeks or their allegience to their party, because the way his campaign has gone, the only new people left listening are likely people who don’t quite comprehend complex policy. Shouldn’t the smart “winning chess move” kind of thing to do right now be appealing to the swing votes? Surely swing voters are not too impressed with what they are seeing.

Attacks get people at a gut level. They are easier to hurl than calm, non-responsive even thinking. These frothed up crowds are the product of that kind of campaigning, and they are dangerous. In fact, I’m scared now EVEN IF OBAMA WINS. That isn’t strategic chess-playing. That’s reckless irresponsibility, because creating seething anger among groups of people is never a good idea!

It’s all in the Maddow video. If you still haven’t clicked, please do so now and take it all in. It’s important stuff.

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Looks like my representative from Georgia, John Lewis, agrees regarding the recklessness of the McCain/Palin ticket.

Ayse shared this in Google Reader last night. It’s from Andrew Sullivan’s liveblogging of last night’s debate:

10.33 pm. This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I’ve watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out. It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don’t really see how the McCain campaign survives this.

It’s McCain’s social skills that seems to belie his ability to effectively debate. He could almost pull it off, but as Chris Matthews was saying after the debate, Obama has this sincere smile that feels real and a natural ability to connect. McCain comes across as really creepy and insincere when he laughs/smiles. As a psychologist, I have to say that these social mistakes McCain keeps making get people at a real gut level. They don’t know what it is about McCain that’s rubbing them the wrong way, but people who are savvy socially know something just ain’t right – whether they can say what that thing is or not.

The title of this post is from “Strange” by R.E.M.’s 1987 album Document (lyrics)

I’m loving the Rachel Maddow Show. She has a knack for talking about exactly what I’m interested in, then analyzing the situation with a keen eye. I love her analysis of Palin’s use of quotes. She really did her homework here.

Dad blogged about this today. It was back during the “Sorry, Everybody” many Americans sent to the world after the last election. I’m still sorry, too. It actually turned out WORSE than I had imagined it would. Looking back, the Democratic candidate wasn’t anything to get excited about, but that last election (selection) was a MESS. Let’s hope there’s no “selection” this time and that it’s a landslide. It deserves to be. Barack Obama is the strongest candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime. He knows how to reach across the table of division, how to look opposition in the eye and see them as a person who deserves respect. That matters to me.

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care?

October
And Kingdoms rise
And Kingdoms fall
But you go on…

…and on…

(First played on August 16, 1981 at Slane Castle in Slane, Ireland. Last played on November 11, 1989 at Western Springs Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand. This song has been played at least 334 times live – either as full song or snippet.)