Candidate Attributes

Larry Bartels emails Ezra Klein some data about his research on the impact (in terms of statistical correlation) of perceptions of different candidate attributes on voting behavior: "The analysis was based on survey questions asking voters to rate presidential candidates on a variety of dimensions. Here are the estimated effects of those evaluations on voting behavior, averaged over elections from 1980 to 2000. (The numbers are not directly interpretable, but the relative magnitudes are.)" I turned the numbers into a handy chart, showing the average on the left and the 2000 result on the right:

I'm not really sure what to make of this, though, as I sort of feel like people may tailor the characteristics they say they're looking for to suit the candidate they're going to vote for. Mainly, you want to be strong yet caring. Or caring yet strong.

Comments

I'm not really sure what to make of this...

More blatant Paulophobia.

The chart clearly demonstrates that Dr. Congressman Ron Paul is the only man who can save America!

Posted by SoCalJustice | November 15, 2007 3:51 PM

you want to be strong yet caring. Or caring yet strong.

And stupid.

Posted by mattn | November 15, 2007 3:58 PM

Americans hate America. Their deep, abiding love of authoritarianism shows in that graph.

Posted by sherifffruitfly | November 15, 2007 4:06 PM

This would be appalling enough if it were what we wanted in our TV newsreaders.

That we prioritize any other fake attribute over any actual knowledge about the world for our president... well... that's just extremely disheartening. Hopefully I'm missing the larger picture about this data here somehow.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | November 15, 2007 4:17 PM

It would be interesting to see what seven years of Bush have done for the importance of "knowledgeable." One would hope that it's increased a bit.

Posted by N | November 15, 2007 4:17 PM

Pretty graph. What did you use to make it?

Posted by eriks | November 15, 2007 4:27 PM

Pretty graph. What did you use to make it?

Numbers -- part of Apple's iWork suite.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | November 15, 2007 4:43 PM

Yes, but what rap song does it represent?

Posted by DonBoy | November 15, 2007 4:45 PM

What do the values of the y-axis mean? "Not directly interpretable" sounds like "meaningless" to me.

There has to be some underlying logic to them. Matt, can you supply it, or at least a link?

I checked EK's post, and it's not there either.

Posted by heedless | November 15, 2007 4:49 PM

Why did "inspiring" drop off of the graph?

Posted by Julian Elson | November 15, 2007 5:08 PM

I would also want to have some more detailed data about the previous periods than is provided. Were they relatively stable around the averages given? I would expect this kind of data to have a large amount of completely random fluctuations. I don't think people really have that strong attachment to particular positive adjectives in their presidential candidates.

Not to mention the fact that most people just vote on party ID basis anyway. For it to (even potentially) mean anything at all for general elections, you would really only want to have this data for that subset of voters who use this kind of reasoning when casting their votes.

Posted by rufustfyrfly | November 15, 2007 5:17 PM

A 5.28 ratio of strength to knowledge. . . Hmm, there must be some kind of role-playing character, probably wielding a sword, that this matches. . .

Posted by RSA | November 15, 2007 5:30 PM

Ah. I looked at Ezra's, and see that "inspiring" was, indeed, dropped from the polls. I should have read more carefully.

I guess 32 strength and 6 intelligence (5.33 ratio) might be reasonable for a high-level half-orc barbarian or something. I think you're right about the sword -- probably a two-handed greatsword or falchion.

Posted by Julian Elson | November 15, 2007 7:04 PM

Huh. I want my politicians to care about people who aren't like me. People like me are doing just fine, thanks.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | November 15, 2007 7:35 PM

the 2000 graph is flipping the bird, which seems about right.

Posted by Lee | November 15, 2007 7:51 PM

Strong and caring...caring and strong...

Damn, this nation has some serious daddy issues.

Posted by anon | November 15, 2007 8:42 PM

How much does it suck that "knowledgeable" always comes in last and, apparently, no one even asks about "competent"?

I can't speak to the aesthetic beauty of the graph, but discontinuous horizontal lines won't exactly get you published in Science or Nature.

Also, why present time-sequenced data in the form of a bar chart? It looks like you're hiding a complexity.

Posted by southpaw | November 15, 2007 11:50 PM