There's not much good in the release of a new bin-Laden tape, but boy, the guy has a sense of timing and theatre Fred Thompson can only dream of, eh? Indeed, the only bright spot is that it lets me link to John Judis's article on research political scientists have done into the "death anxiety," and how it relates to elections.
In October 2003, the three scholars, together with five colleagues, assembled 97 undergraduates at Rutgers to participate in what the students thought was a study of the relationship between personality and politics. One group was given the mortality exercises. The other wasn't. They then read an essay expressing a "highly favorable opinion of the measures taken by President Bush with regards to 9/11 and the Iraqi conflict."...on average, members of the control group rated it unfavorably. But those who did the mortality exercises on balance favored the statement. In February 2004, the psychologists repeated the experiment, but this time they used September 11 cues. They had one group of students write down the emotions that September 11 aroused in them and describe what happened on that day. They got the same results as before: On average, those in the September 11 group approved of the statement, while those who didn't do the exercises disapproved. Based on political questionnaires they had the students fill out, they also found that the September 11 and mortality exercises "increased both conservatives' and liberals' liking for Bush."
Then, in late September 2004, the psychologists, along with two colleagues from Rutgers, tested whether mortality exercises influenced whom voters would support in the upcoming presidential election. They conducted the study among 131 Rutgers undergraduates who said they were registered and planned to vote in November. The control group that completed a personality survey, but did not do the mortality exercises, predictably favored Kerry by four to one. But the students who did the mortality exercises favored Bush by more than two to one. This strongly suggested that Bush's popularity was sustained by mortality reminders. The psychologists concluded in a paper published after the election that the government terror warnings, the release of Osama bin Laden's video on October 29, and the Bush campaign's reiteration of the terrorist threat (Cheney on election eve: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again") were integral to Bush's victory over Kerry.
The whole article is worth reading, but the main finding is that reminders of mortality or threat provoke a sort of psychological retrenchment into tribe, culture, country, etc. They do more than demand a strong leader: They create a yearning for a traditional one. And that advantages not only certain Republican heuristics, but a broad set of conservative policy positions. Bin Laden, of course, wasn't present at Rutgers for the experiments, but certainly has an intuitive grasp of this concept, which is why he times his video releases for elections, anniversaries, etc. He's a pavlovian terrorist, and it's been working out pretty damn well for him.
