What attracts voters?

I spent the day yesterday with the Obama Get-Out-The-Vote campaign. Knocking on doors in middle class neighborhoods I found upbeat people voting for Obama and grumpy people voting for McCain. A fellow canvaser said that was because McCain is behind in the polls. But is it?

I would love to do a survey of how and why people respond to the candidates themselves. If you could remove things like party affiliation, economic status, race, and anything else that predetermines how you will likely vote. Concentrate only on the speeches made by the candidates, not the ads, just the candidates themselves. Does like attract like?

Barack Obama is speaking about a message of hope, of improvement, of involvement. There is, of course, some negativity in his speeches, but overall they are positive messages.

John McCain is speaking mostly about what is wrong. Wrong with the country, the world and Obama. Very little about an optimistic point of view. Even his plan to fix things sounds discouraging.

With nothing but an intuitive feeling to justify this, I get the impression that positive people who believe in a better tomorrow are attracted to Obama. And negative people who are worried that things are just going to get worse are attracted to McCain.

Think positive!