Maybe you thought people turned out to vote because they were passionate about a candidate.  Or made rational decisions to vote regularly because their civics teachers convinced them that's what good citizens do. Or their parents trained them to vote.

Turns out your parents have something to do with it, but not because of the way they reared you.

Voting and other political participation is in your genes, it seems. A study by James Fowler and Christopher Dawes to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Politics (and already discussed in the New York Times May 27)  even found the two genes that seem to account for voting behavior. And those genes do the job because they have to do with sociability and handling stress. The MAOA gene influences voting activity directly, while the 5HTT gene needs some other social activity (attending church) to make it kick into gear.

If you've got the right versions of the voting genes, you don't get so nervous when people start to bash about in the political arena, even if they are saying rude and hurtful and stupid things. In fact, you may think it's fun. Fowler and Dawes didn't say that, but it sort of follows logically from what they did say.

Bottom line is the sociability factor. When you've got the genes for having the "prosocial" neurochemical process thing going on, you're more likely to "identify as partisans" and form attachments to groups. I'm thinking it has to do with being a fan of any sort. This year church attendance: next year, the researchers might look at season ticket holding.

Both genes have something to do with serotonin absorption. The efficient metabolizer gene variants apparently are like having your own little Prozac manufacturer right in your own little brain.

The church thing is a little fuzzy to me. But the authors seem to say if you've got the right form of the genes and you actively attend church, you're likely to be influenced by political information received there. The religious right seems to have figured that out long ago.

The Times says "If certain genes make us more receptive to political messages, or more or less likely to vote, then we know the next step society must take: Keep the drugs that target the specific genes out of the hands of political consultants."

But in the meantime, if you're running for political office, attend church, hang out with sociable people, go to soccer games, and attach yourself to people who aren't afraid to get a little nasty when it comes to political talk. That's where the voters are.

And were, in Tosa, a few months ago.

Discussion ring now open. Spirited--but not mean-spirted--discussion welcome! 

    I love this photo of Wauwatosa Mayor Jill Didier's swearing in.  It's so . . . lively and unconventional. And it practically cries for inventive captioning.

Judge rescues woman from attackers

Child, husband, try to stop mom

Many rush to help as woman collapses

Gang creates diversion in Tosa pickpocketing crime spree 

I'm sure you can come up with better ones. Meanwhile, I'll just congratulate Jill and wish her the best as I ponder the unintended stories in this candid tableau. One, from famous Milwaukee ex-pat politician Golda Meir, seems especially apt:

At work, you think of the children you've left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself, your heart is rent.

Here's to doing good work anyway, rent hearts and all!  

 It's 45 minutes into the Democratic debate between Clinton and Obama, and not a single important question has been raised.

 Instead, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulus have continued to grill the candidates about their ministers, their faulty recollections, and their failure to wear flag pins.

Stephanopoulus, more vigorous than Gibson, actually asked whether Obama's controversial minister was as patriotic as he was. Astonishingly, Obama spent what seemed like hours attempting to answer the question in a reasonable way.

The proper response? "What on earth are you talking about? It's ridiculous to ask anyone to speculate about anyone else's patriotism. Let me tell you about what my patriotism means in terms of how I'll lead the country."

 And Clinton also spent what seemed like hours responding to the question about her blooper about ducking fire in Bosnia. She should have said "Look. I misremembered. I blew it. Let's talk about what I'll do as Commander in Chief."

 Now someone's asking Obama about a Weatherman fugitive who lived in his neighborhood when he was eight years old. And again, the candidate is responding as if it's a serious and reasonable question.

There are two issues for this campaign: the war and the economy. Time for the Democrats to take control of the issues--and the conversation. And since the media won't do it, it's time for us, the electorate, to start asking better questions--and insisting on real answers.

One more thing: regardless of party, there's not a single candidate who can properly claim to be like us. They are all richer, more privileged, better educated, and well removed from the reality of everyday life. So just stop pretending, please.

 

Everyone is pretty sure that we vote for candidates based on rational decision-making. But the research says we're not rational. Instead, we are rationalizers. We hunt and sift for good sounding reasons for our decisions after we've already made them.

That sounds about right to me. Researcher Richard Lau says that the real reasons for choosing as we do are:

1. The candidate shares our biases.
   
2. Our neighbors say nice things about them.  

According to Lau, who's coauthor of How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns, what doesn't sway people are policy analyses or arguments.

What's more, "the people who look at the most information. . . are not necessarily the people who are going to best be able to determine which candidate is best for them. Really, people often do better with little information than with a lot of information."

Who knew?  

If you're voting Tuesday, chances are you fall into one of these voting types:

1. Fast and frugal (the one issue voter)
2. Cognitive miser (looks for cue words and goes with them)
3. Rational (try to learn as much as possible)
4. Confirmatory (you already know you're going to like the liberal or conservative candidate better).
   

You'll have to read the article if you want to find out why "less information is more." But I'll use the advice for my endorsement:

Vote yes for the fire station. We need it, it's cheaper now than it will be later, and Dean Redman is an upright kinda guy who wouldn't steer us wrong.

As for the mayoral candidates, you've already known for a long time who you were going to vote for, haven't you?