The Washington Monthly

December 29, 2005

VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS ... Republican strategist Matthew Dowd doesn't have much in common with Santa Claus. But if he saw your holiday wish-list, chances are he wouldn't have to check it twice to guess how you voted last November. In 2004, Dowd, a chief strategist for the Bush campaign, helped organize an effort in 16 states of matching voter information with consumer data — 182 unique data points per voter — to reveal likely Bush supporters. As Dowd recently told Texas Monthly's S.C. Gwynne:

"Traditional political science says that you can predict who a person is going to vote for based on his income or whether he is pro-choice or pro-life, for taxes or against," Dowd said. "Well, that does not work. Lifestyle is what determines political choice. I would rather know where they shop, what they buy, what kind of car they drive, what sports they watch, where the kids go to school. Income is no predictor ..."

According to Dowd, if you bought a camo vest at Cabela's, you probably vote red. If you bought organic rice cakes at Whole Foods, you probably vote blue. Some results are less obvious: Dr. Pepper guzzlers trend red; Fanta drinkers trend blue. Republicans drive domestic-made SUVs and minivans; Democrats drive foreign-made ones. You can nitpick the categories (I don't like Dr. Pepper or Fanta), but his track record reveals Dowd must have been on to something. Still, what to make of the following tidbit?

The TV show "Will & Grace," for example, which centers on the lives of a gay man and a straight woman, leans heavily Republican. It's the Republican women who are watching it.

As a side note, though I'm sure many Cabela's shoppers vote red, anyone who assumes that all conservation-minded hunters and anglers are hunky-dory with the Grand Old Party might turn out to be — as they say in Texas — a bum steer. More on that next week.

UPDATE: By way of clarification, Dowd's data-mining method doesn't hold that voting habits can be deduced from a single shopping excursion. Rather, his formula weights many factors (yes, you can drink Dr. Pepper while munching rice cakes) to determine likely party affiliation — according to Dowd, with 85-90% accuracy.

—Christina Larson 8:34 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (34)

Comments

Republican Women are gonna be most of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN's audience. Right?

Posted by: speculator on December 29, 2005 at 9:22 AM | PERMALINK

"... the assumption that all conservation-minded hunters and anglers are hunky-dory with the Grand Old Party ..."

These are probably correlations, not assumptions. And I don't see any figures, so the word "all" in the above quote is a little strong -- even "most" might be over-reaching.

But are they getting individually identifiable information about purchases from the retailers (so they can correlate across stores)?

Posted by: robert the red on December 29, 2005 at 9:24 AM | PERMALINK

Hmmm....

Lemme see, I fish, hunt, drink occasionally, play violent video games and would probably fall in the red category...oh and I prefer Mtn Dew but guess what...I vote blue.

Posted by: Dreggas on December 29, 2005 at 9:27 AM | PERMALINK

I read the article. The strangest tidbit, even more than "Will and Grace," is that Food Network fans are heavily Democratic, while the Learning Channel and History Channel skew Republican. Who knew that Emeril and Rachel Ray were stealth operatives of the left?

Posted by: Karen Cox on December 29, 2005 at 9:32 AM | PERMALINK

So, all the GOP has to do to win is help Dr. Pepper with their advertising?

Wow, that's deep.

Posted by: Ozymandias on December 29, 2005 at 9:33 AM | PERMALINK

This is the same data mining technology used by Amazon to suggest items. People who bought this also bought this.
The difference between merchandising and politics is that buying decisions are individual actions. Today's political parties are integrated entities. You can sip a Fanta while wearing a Cabela's vest.
If you vote Republican or Democratic you get a total slate of policies.
If you vote Republican to get a cut in your capital gains taxes, you'll probably get restrictions on abortions...even if you don't want them.

And if you buy a Fanta today, you can still buy Dr. Pepper tomorrow. Decisions made by government on your behalf can lock things in for generations.

And I suspect some product choices may be indicators of other demographic factors.
Dr. Pepper, created in Waco, TX, is popular in the rural south which skews red. Fanta is extremely popular with hispanics who skew blue.

Where this pays off, of course, is in rigging district lines in an effort to disenfranchise voters for the other party.

Posted by: art hackett on December 29, 2005 at 9:38 AM | PERMALINK

Dr. Pepper is a cultural institution in red states, so it would seem to make some sense that continuing to drink it wherever one lived could be a marker for holding on to red-state values.

Fanta (a Coca-Cola product) is heavily marketed in Latin America; I would guess that a lot of the drinkers in this country are Hispanics, who have a tendency to be blue.

Posted by: PatrickA on December 29, 2005 at 9:44 AM | PERMALINK

It's no surprise to me that Republican Women watch Will and Grace. It fits the stereotype of Gay men that they prefer. Gal pals, outrageously funny but harmless, defenseless.

Posted by: sixdegree on December 29, 2005 at 9:44 AM | PERMALINK

"Brokeback Mountain" has been doing massive business at a cinema in Plano, Texas.

Posted by: Brittain33 on December 29, 2005 at 9:45 AM | PERMALINK

Sixdegree is spot on. I'd only add well dressed and handsome to his list of stereotypes.

Posted by: SavageView on December 29, 2005 at 9:49 AM | PERMALINK

Dr. Pepper? Fanta? Chessssstnuts, my precioussss.
Dr. Pepper is a southern taste; Fanta trends black.

Posted by: Joe S. on December 29, 2005 at 9:52 AM | PERMALINK

But I love Dr. Pepper! Then, again, I drink Diet.

Posted by: oliver on December 29, 2005 at 9:53 AM | PERMALINK

Isn't this pretty much the logical extension of Lakoff's thesis that voters don't vote based on what's best for them but based on who they identify with? People buy things that reinforce their sense of self, their idea of what kind of person they want to be. That's what marketers have based their marketing on for years, if not decades, so it only logically follows that political parties should start figuring out what most people fantasize about being and going for that.

The beginning would be this, figuring out what sort of person already votes for you, using that to find more potential voters, and expanding from there...

Democrats might benefit from doing the same, but I think, love him or hate him, Lakoff has figured out part of the problem facing Democrats which is that Republicans have spent the better part of half a century already molding the national identity in their image. Sure, people may support liberal, Democratic ideas and policies when they stop to think about it, but the sort of person most people seem to fantasize about being is the sort of brash, in-control cowboy, the ubermensch CEO, the captains of the world, and the GOP likes to play dress-up in those roles to attract all the people who want to think of themselves in that manner. You know, no American doesn't want to be rich, that kind of thing, and so they identify with the crony scumbags even though it goes against their interest to vote for them.

Clinton made some similar headway by associating himself with celebrities/Hollywood; many people fantasize about that life as well, and it worked at the time. But I don't think there's much capital left there, and the GOP has spent so much time fomenting anti-elite sentiment, and things like South Park & Team America have reinforced that, so I doubt pretending you're a rock star or movie star will help any future Dems get elected.

Maybe the best thing Dems could do is find out what secret fantasies most of the mass of non-voters out there have and trying to align with that?

Posted by: Adam Piontek on December 29, 2005 at 9:55 AM | PERMALINK

Data mining is a seductive but overly aggressive data analysis method. Unless Dowd had a hold-out 1/3 that he validated his screen on, this is just a reflection of the sample. While statistical methods do use methods like this, the problem with data mining at this level is that we are making 1000s if not 100s of 1000s of decisions about the single sample. Thus, standard rules about statistical inference are tested, pushed and often do not turn out to be correct. Some of his conclusions will be correct, but some are idiotic. I have ALWAYS been very suspicious of preferences in beverages, for instance. Some days, I prefer a Dr. Pepper, some days a Pepsi. On the other hand, I ALWAYS drink the diet version.

Posted by: POed Liberal on December 29, 2005 at 9:57 AM | PERMALINK

i find nothing profound in his arguments..
probably much room for error as well.

Posted by: sed on December 29, 2005 at 10:05 AM | PERMALINK

Uh...I'm as liberal as you get without being a loon and I am PRO-taxation so long as it is fair and that the rich pay proportionately more than the un-rich, etc. Here's the thing...I bought a camo vest (body armor) off e-bay, like to wear my camo field jacket (prior service), and recently bought a lovely (as such things go) assault-type weapon (FN/FAL pre-ban carbine plus holographic tactical scope - only I don't hunt and wont kill a single animal, including spiders). How does this square with his methodology? How does this square with me being as anti-red as one can be? Perhaps I'm just an outlier? I am the error in his measurement.

Posted by: Praedor Atrebates on December 29, 2005 at 10:06 AM | PERMALINK

The voters don't vote on the basis of what is best for them but on the basis of what they perceive to be the best for them.

The party that is best able to exploit this distinction wins. Always.

Posted by: lib on December 29, 2005 at 10:07 AM | PERMALINK

You know what the Republican Women Who Watch Will & Grace explains?

Why the show is still on. I'm gay and know a lot of gay people-- no one watches this show. It's tired, tired, tired. But at is surprising that the biggest fans are Republican women, a fact that certainly bodes well for us queers.

Posted by: zoe kentucky on December 29, 2005 at 10:17 AM | PERMALINK

Dude! No Fanta OR Dr. Pepper?? How blue state can you get?

Posted by: glichte on December 29, 2005 at 10:19 AM | PERMALINK

If one is prone to unreasonable arguments with little to no evidence and is more than likely to easily anger, we are talking a RED.

Posted by: Satan on December 29, 2005 at 10:23 AM | PERMALINK

Holy shit! Dr. Pepper versus Fanta!?! It's a tough one, but I think my gut is with Dr. Pepper, although I'm liberal.

This thread isn't much to talk about-- once the Southern v. Hispanic demographic/marketing thing is pointed out, the magic trick is exposed. This is really in the same vain as all that "blue v. red" stereotyping, I think-- who was that editorialist, an NY Times writer I think, who was making that stuff his stock-in trade for a while?

I recall a comment on a Hullaballo post, I think, from a while back, which made a big deal of a bunch of unflattering survey correlations between conservative and liberal voters as far as satisfaction w/ their lives and relationships, stuff like that. But once you considered the conservative myth of the GOP representing the common man-- as we know, African Americans are the solidest "working class" left in this country, and they're solidly democratic-- it was easy to see how all the points of correlation had more to do with a much greater likelihood of being a person of modest means, than with being a scumbag or something (by way of one's political outlook, or whatever...)

God knows, my family are great people, but it's inevitably tough living together-- I'm sure we'd be a lot more comfortable, happy, and happy w/ each other if we all had luxury cars & didn't have to worry about anything-- like the type of people GOP'ers are more likely to be.

Posted by: Swan on December 29, 2005 at 10:25 AM | PERMALINK

Blue meanies.

In small towns and downmarket suburbs, the rich people you really dislike are always Blue State types: tofu-eating, latte drinking, bmw driving, chakra opening yuppies.

For a lot of people, those people are the Democratic party.

Posted by: jimmy on December 29, 2005 at 10:29 AM | PERMALINK

Well, if there is a heave leaning of Republican women watching WILL AND GRACE it probably isn't because they have a sense of humor...listen to some of them...might be they need insight to their closeted mates...seems to be a lot of that in the GOP...either latent homos or Newtlike ramblers! Course they do have the Jesus!

Posted by: Dancer on December 29, 2005 at 10:34 AM | PERMALINK

Mr. Dowd on the 2004 presidential election: "People voted against their own self-interest but I think it's a very good thing."

Posted by: Super G on December 29, 2005 at 10:38 AM | PERMALINK

As to why some areas trend red and other trend blue, Steve Sailer explains it all-- affordable family formation.

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050508_family.htm

Posted by: beowulf on December 29, 2005 at 11:30 AM | PERMALINK

Waaaay back when I used to drink sodas I used to love Dr. Pepper with peanuts tossed in. Yep, I know it's weird, but the fizziness and saltiness blended well. Give it a try and see what you think.

Re: Volvo-driving, chakra opening, health food buying Liberals

There are similar stereotypes on the Republican side which are just as disgusting.

Strangely, there are stereotypes on both sides which seem very contradictory. For example, on the Republican side there is the rich white male who shits on everybody -- the Boss, and then there is the poor bigoted White redneck who carries a rifle in his truck and hates just about everybody, but especially Blacks and A-rabs. How do these things get reconciled? It's a mystery.

Posted by: MarkH on December 29, 2005 at 11:39 AM | PERMALINK

I don't drink soft drinks, but I do shop Cabela's, eat red meat, and I'm lusting after a hybrid Ford Escape. And I can't stand Will and Grace.

However, it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for a neocon Republican.

Posted by: a_retrogrouch on December 29, 2005 at 12:05 PM | PERMALINK

The place to look for analysis of this sort is Pierre Bourdeiu, Distinction. While it doesn't speak to politics directly, it's certainly relevant here.

Posted by: Karl the Idiot on December 29, 2005 at 12:44 PM | PERMALINK

Republican women have neither taste in politicians nor taste in sitcoms.

Posted by: phil on December 29, 2005 at 1:18 PM | PERMALINK

MarkH,

I suggest listening to Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game" to see why people have no trouble reconciling those two distinct stereotypes within the Republican coalition. While its an oldie (about the murder of Medgar Evers), its a really great tune, and it explains why those two stereotypes are seen in people found working together towards common goals.

And the answer, as Dylan hints at, isn't to berate the poor white redneck, but instead to see him as a victim of "The Boss" and to help raise him up (albeit while shitting on the lousy SOB that killed Medgar Evers) so that he doesn't have to put others down to feel good about his place in society. I think too many liberals have forgotten that part of the challenge, and have instead been consumed by their disgust for the uneducated. And if that sounds condescending to you, well, we've come a long way since 1963, but not everything's changed.

Posted by: Dismayed Liberal on December 29, 2005 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINK

MarkH,

it gets reconciled because it's not inconsistent.

People who have shitty reasons to discriminate against others-- whether on the basis of class, race, culture, or willingness to think and be educated. That's the Republican party.

Posted by: Swan on December 29, 2005 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINK

Guess how one would vote is one made a point of drinking Dr. Pepper from a bottle only?

Posted by: Leszek on December 30, 2005 at 12:45 AM | PERMALINK

As a person with a 6-figure income, driving a Ford Escort, country club member who has never voted in more than 40 years for a non Dem (except when Dick Ichord was my representative in congress), I reject these stereotypes.

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