A quick word on background of this method is in order. It's a further development of Max Weber's concept of ideal types. My Masters' Thesis in 1982, `Typifications, Ideal Types and Research Methodologies', was a philosophy of science discussion combining Weber with key concepts from phenomenology and symbolic interactionism, proposing an integrated, holistic applied research approach anchored in psychological ideal types.

Arnold Miller's The Nine American Lifestyles was the seminal work, in my view, taking psychographics into the `real world' of applied research. Miller's work was so influential that SRI International opened a corporate division to market and support the method, known as VALS (Values and Lifestyles). They use it only as a market research tool, however.

The next big jump, into the political sphere, came from the Pew Center for The People and The Press. In the late `80's they started conducting psychographic surveys about every four years focusing on political issues and developed their own typology. Their latest, Beyond Red vs. Blue, was published last year. It's excellent work, although their method is very simple, in my view.

Personally, I've been doing psychographic research since the early `90's, specifically for political/public policy communications and campaign contexts. I've tested and extended the method to be very precise, robust and informative. When applied effectively in communications, this stuff really works. I shit you not.

So with that intro, let's get into it. First things first. Think `themes' and `groups', people. Themes and groups. That's the big picture. We're looking for patterns inside the data that relate to underlying themes and groups of voters. And then, when we find them, we'll see how they behave, what they mean and then the strategic communications implications.

We'll start with the end, the seven identified groups, so you can see how they behave on a few key questions from the survey. The names of the groups are fairly self-explanatory, although I'll flesh out quite a bit more detail on each later, maybe even in the next post if this intro one gets too long. Here's the breakdown nationally:

                                          Percent

Blue Core                           13%
Urban Blue                         17
Progressives                      11
Heartland Blue                   12
Heartland Red                    8
Trusting Boomers               6
Red Core                            33

First, a note on names. Notice they usually infer a demographic and a psychological aspect or state. Thus, `heartland', as in middle America, `blue', as in political views. Demographic, psychology. It's not always the case on names, but usually. Progressives, for example, I think is one where we all have a pretty good idea of what that means.

Next, three key points on the data right off the bat. One, note the size of the Red Core: 33%, by far the largest single group. That means  right-wing voters in this country are remarkably similar to each other in perceptions and outlook. Psychographics builds groups that are highly consistent internally, meaning whoever is in a given group thinks pretty much just like everybody else in that group. Thus, for the Red Core to comprise a third of the electorate truly highlights the `follower' nature, or lack of independent thinking or however you want to characterize it, of the right-wingers in this country. That may not be a shocker to you, but now it's a research finding, not somebody's opinion, guess, perception or predisposition. Big, big difference when it comes to developing strategy and communications, friends.

Second, God bless the blues, the diversified bastards. Sheesh, four groups, each quite different from the others, trying to hold a coalition together to beat back these Republi-Clones. A real snapshot of what herding cats is like, I say.

And, finally, overall these data reiterate the Grand Canyon political split in this country: 53% blue groups and 47% red groups. There you go.

Next, here are the groups on the first substantive question of the survey: the direction the US is headed.

                                                        Right               Wrong               Not
                                                         Direction         Track                Sure

United States                                    37%                 48%                 15%

Blue Core                                         13                     71                    16
Urban Blue                                         6                       86                    8
Progressives                                     11                     70                    19
Heartland Blue                                 10                     69                    21
Heartland Red                                  51                     32                    17
Trusting Boomers                              45                     31                    24
Red Core                                          75                     13                    12

Interesting, yes? You bet. Dubya and The Gang are in a bit o' shit. They can't pull half or more saying `right direction' from five of seven groups. Their only strong numbers are in the Red Core, their absolute base, and they lose a third each to `wrong track' among key supporters: Heartland Red and Trusting Boomers.

Further, strong majorities of the four `blue' groups are agreed in their perception the country is off on the wrong track. Only about one in ten of these groups are lost to right direction. In short, our side is agreed on this basic perceptual issue and theirs is hemorrhaging on it.

Let's take another one, even more politically substantive: should Congress investigate whether Dubs broke the law on the NSA gig and/or lied about WMD in Iraq.

                                                       Should                Neutral/        Should not
                                                        Investigate          Not Sure       Investigate

United States                                   44%                    15%              41%

Blue Core                                        90                        4                   6
Urban Blue                                      90                        3                   7
Progressives                                    80                        6                   14
Heartland Blue                                56                        11                 33
Heartland Red                                 35                        17                 48
Trusting Boomers                           22                        11                 67
Red Core                                         12                        8                   80

Again blues are united, with strong majorities in all four groups calling for investigation. Further, the issue bleeds off a third of Heartland Red, leaving the Preznit's side majorities in only two groups.

You may recall from my previous post that I advocated hitting this specific issue hard over the entire mid-term election cycle and, further, my advocacy was based on some of the psychological dynamics I saw in the data, rather than demographics. These data support that conclusion, strongly. They  even clarify the strategic opportunity further: this issue clearly is one our side rallies around and, importantly, it also splits a key constituency of their side. Dang, that's a `go for it' proposition if I ever saw one. I wonder if the DLC is listening? Heh.

So, continuing on in this intro `tree-tops' view of the psychographics, let's look at a couple of themes the analysis found. Response patterns show certain questions are `connected' to others, usually 2 to 5 questions indicate a single theme. When you find those connections, the issue becomes what theme underlies them? Defining that underlying theme sometimes is easy, clear cut and sometimes it's a bit of research art. In my view, it always boils down to practicality: is the defined theme one that is practical, useful and informative in the context of the research? Is it helping understand, explain and even predict? If so, rock on. If not, either go back and try again or drop it and move on.

Here are the questions indicating one of the themes in the data:

1.    Worry the US will be attacked by terrorists in the next year,
2.    Worry that Osama hasn't been captured,
3.    Rating on feelings of personal safety/security since 9/11.

So what theme underlies being worried about an attack, worried OBL is still on the loose and feeling less safe/secure since 9/11? In my view, it's fear. Fear encompasses perceived threats: attacks and OBL. Fear is based on perceived personal insecurity: I'm less safe now than then. Fear, cynically grown and harvested by this Administration for five long years. And captured in our data.

Here's how the groups lay out when crosstabbed with the fear theme:

                                           Fearful*           Neutral*           Not fearful*

United States                      40%                  19%                 41%

Blue Core                            9                        13                    78
Urban Blue                         82                       14                    4
Progressives                       53                       32                    14
Heartland Blue                   29                       28                    43
Heartland Red                    17                       22                    61
Trusting Boomers              0                          8                       92
Red Core                           15                        18                      67

(Note: These numbers are standardized by the statistical procedure. That means they're forced into a normal distribution, popularly known as a Bell Curve. Here's how to interpret them properly: We can't say with confidence that 40% of the American electorate is fearful...because of standardization. We can, however, say with great confidence that Urban Blues and Progressives are more likely to be fearful than the overall electorate. So it's the comparison of groups to the US numbers that yields a finding, not the specific numbers themselves.)

The most interesting finding to me in this table is who's not fearful. First, you have the two partisan extremes, Blue and Red Core. So, ginning up fear is not going to appreciably affect those who are most ideological. Hmm. That makes sense, actually. Why would they be more fearful given communications and perceptions delivered by the Preznit when they have the certainty of their ideology to interpret information through? In short, Blue Core may perceive Condi's `mushroom clouds' as a blatantly political manipulation, with little or no likelihood of occurring, while Red Core may perceive the same statement as proof positive that `Dubya's got it covered, he's on it, he ain't gonna let it happen'. No fear, either way. See?

Then there's the T-Boomers. And they are Trusting, these guys. They trust Dubs on everything: jobs, safety, Homeland Security, NSA, etc., etc. Everything. I'll talk more about them in the next post, but suffice it to say for now these guys are Robo-voters, Borg-like. In my view, if these guys can be broken down on Dubs, even though it's a small voter group overall, then we've cracked their genetic code.

And, one final theme just to give you a taste of how effective Dubs and Rove have been. And how dangerous their operation really is.  Here's the questions that connect together in a single theme:

1.    The US is headed in the right direction,
2.    Pretest approval of Dubs' job performance,
3.    Posttest approval of Dubs' job performance,
4.    Support the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq,
5.    Support keeping 100,000+ troops in Iraq for years,
6.    Support Murtha's plan for troop deployment regarding Iraq,
7.    Believe Congress should not investigate whether Dubs broke the law,
8.    Oppose impeachment even if Dubs broke the law,
9.    OK for the NSA to bypass courts and spy on citizens,
10.    Trust the NSA to monitor only those who are a potential national security threat.

Whaddya think? What's this theme? What's common to all these positions? Uh, I'll take `Bush Meme' for $2000, Alex.  

That's what I see. Many of the `big boys' from the poll are in there, in this theme. Job performance, Iraq, NSA, impeachment. A stunning array, and wide variety, of Bush positions/issues tested in the MyDD Poll, all connected to each other. Subtly, under the surface. In my view, the result of a coherent, consistent and relentless narrative, internalized by voters over the past 5+ years, providing them the frame of reference, the `anchor points', to respond favorably to Dubya on just about any issue whatsoever. Wow. A stunner, indeed.

The scope of this theme, and how thoroughly it has permeated the American electorate, is simply breathtaking to me. I've been doing this work for well over a decade and I don't recall any findings, at any time, on any issue, anywhere that approach this one. It's like the mythological Hydra; you cut off one head and another springs up immediately. Shee-it.

Here's the Bush Meme crosstab table with the groups:

                                                    Positive toward                                  Negative toward
                                                     Bush Meme*              Neutral*         Bush Meme*

United States                                43%                            16%                41%

Blue Core                                     1                                  5                     94
Urban Blue                                   13                                22                   65
Progressives                                  5                                 15                   80
Heartland Blue                             41                                29                   30
Heartland Red                              83                                7                     10  
Trusting Boomers                        95                                3                      2
Red Core                                      70                                16                   14

(*Standardized numbers, as before. Compare groups to the US numbers for an accurate finding.)

As they say in The Music Man: "Trouble, trouble, trouble in River City". Yep, that would be the case. Danger Will Robinson. Big time. Notice how the red groups light up on this theme. Big numbers, across all their groups. Lows in the neutral spot and on the negative end. Almost all of them eat this stuff up, folks. It's their crack cocaine and our campaigns had better recognize that. Yesterday.

Further, this theme cuts into our Heartland people. Big, a plurality even. Thus, it's not just a defensive weapon, shoring up existing support for Dubs, this thing is big time offense, cutting directly into our muscle, bones. We're talking blitzkrieg versus the Maginot Line, if you get my drift.

And you can be sure Oberleutnant Rove gets it. He already told us flat out what he was going to do in 2006: stoke fear and make Goopers the No New Attacks, Everything's Cool heroes. Fuuuck, man. It's there for the taking. They've set it up perfectly, know how to play it from previous elections and have every intention of doing precisely that, evidently.

This is why I'm very, very skeptical of the `wave theory' for this year's election cycle, regardless of Bush approval numbers, partisan Congressional elect/re-elect, yadda, yadda. I just don't think it's a throw the bums out gig for the Goopers, given their strategy/messaging and, most importantly, the incompetence of our campaigns and advice coming out of the Beltway.

People may be disgusted by these Gooper criminals and incompetents, and reflect that in surface measures like Right Direction/Wrong Track. However, we now know many, if not most, voters also have been infected by the Bush Flu, a.k.a. Bush Meme. Most of our professional campaign idiots haven't even figured out anybody's sick yet, much less developed a vaccine.

'So, hold on, just a little bit tighter now, baby'. More is coming on this stuff. And now we're locked on to the Trail Of Solutions, instead of the Trail Of Tears.

Keep the faith.