'Political Brain' Author Warns About Delay Targeting McCain

Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, and author of The Political Brain warns in The New Republic that the intra-party tussling for the Democratic presidential nomination is allowing John McCain to define himself

... with little resistance (and an occasional assist from the Clinton campaign) as the natural choice for commander-in-chief and as a straight-talker--a particularly strong brand in an election that may turn out to be much like the 1976 election, when Jimmy Carter reassured a nation weary of the dishonesty of the Nixon years, "I will never lie to you."

McCain is also "amplifying the perceived weaknesses of both Democratic contenders."

Recently, for example, he described his opponents as offering "platitudes instead of principles and insults instead of ideas," effectively joining with Hillary Clinton in her attack on Barack Obama, while simultaneously turning her own relentless (and effective) attacks on Obama into an attack on her.

In Westen's view, while it's true that the contest for the Democratic nomination is grabbing media attention from McCain, the attention that it brings to the Democratic candidates is negative. Westen's central thesis in The Politcal Brain is that

much of our brain consists of networks of associations--thoughts, images, ideas, memories, and emotions--that become connected with each other over time, so that activating one part of a network activates the rest (including the gut-level feelings associated with a candidate that "summarize" voters' judgments about the candidate and are among the best predictors in the voting booth). The more times a network is activated, the harder it is to change, for reasons both physiological and psychological.

Pragmatically speaking, that means that the more times voters hear John McCain described as a war hero and a strong potential commander-in-chief-instead of, for example, a man with such poor judgment on national security that he would support an endless continuation of an ill-fated war much like the one he suffered through despite his own personal experience--the harder it will be to deactivate that network and inhibit those neural links.

One solution, Westen suggests, is for 527 groups to begin targeting McCain now, so there are some Democratic messages "shaping the network of associations that constitute public opinion" even before we have a nominee to carry that message through November.