Are subliminal forces at work in politics?

One of my sailing buddies and I had an interesting conversation while on the open ocean on the way to Block Island.

'Stef, I know you read Randy Wayne White's ‘Doc Ford' crime fiction novels. Which of the 2016 presidential wannabes would you match up with the good, bad and horrible characters in his books?”

At the time, with a helpful 14 knots allowing us to beat windward to our destination, my mind was on 2016 presidential politics. I had just watched the Union Leader 'forum” in New Hampshire.

'What an interesting idea,” I averred. 'You ask voters what characters from their favorite murder mystery novel the five Democrats and the 17 (or is it now 18?) Republicans they are reminded of as they watch interviews and debates.”

So my dear readers, I'm going to launch a new hypothesis:

'Insofar as a candidate reminds a voter of a hero or sympathetic character from their favorite series, they may or will vote for him or her. If the candidate reminds the voter of a nasty or evil character, they will not.” (The characters can be from books such as Star Wars, John D. MacDonald novels ('Cape Fear”), Judith Anne (J.N.) Jance, Carl Hiaasen, Peter Abrahams ('Down the Rabbit Hole”), Janet Evanovich and her great character Stephanie Plum, or the works of any other popular writer.)

For the most part this will a be subliminal or subconscious influence. Voters will not necessarily be aware of the connection or the influence it may have on them when they go to the caucuses or actually vote.

As in shopping, where subliminal messages and psychology play a huge role in consumer choices, my assumption is the same forces are at work in political decision making. Dehaene and colleagues wrote an excellent paper in the journal Trends in Cognitive Science in which they examine subliminal, preconscious and conscious processing by the human brain and map onto different neural mechanisms. They analyze these brain events that are evoked by a visual stimulus I would argue such as the faces and voices of presidential contenders.

This idea was reinforced when I received an email from a reader who included a picture of Hillary Clinton taken aboard a military airplane when she was secretary of state. She has on dark glasses, is staring into her BlackBerry, wearing the mandatory pantsuit.

The person wrote, 'Dr. Schmidt, don't you think Mrs. Clinton looks for all the money in the world like a bad character from the great movie 'Dr. Strangelove?”

I saw the subliminal connection in that picture.

In another case, a friend sent me a link to a comparison of Gov. Bobby Jindal's nose and mouth and those of Alfred E. Neuman - the character from MAD Magazine. By golly, they looked identical except for the fact that Alfred is missing a middle tooth.

Ask yourself and ask your friends to look at pictures of the current candidates.

Try to picture them at the first presidential debate, and play along with this recognition game. See whether they find any of the contenders to be the good guy or gal in their favorite mystery novel or other work of fiction. That could just be a clue to the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary and Super Tuesday.

Then, after the convention next summer, when each party has a nominee, let's test those candidates for the 'hero” and 'villain” premise - or what will be known as The Schmidt Hypothesis of Subliminal Presidential Preference.

' Steffen Schmidt is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. Comments: steffenschmidt2005@gmail.com