"It's all about the economy, stupid," is the classic phrase describing the only thing voters care about.
It's been quoted for decades, most recently by Todd Whitcombe in his latest political column in The Citizen.
The phrase dates back to a time when economics was governed by the theory that people are rational creatures that make monetary decisions strictly in their self-interest. When psychologists blew that theory to smithereens, creating the sub-field of behavioural economics in the process, the "it's all about the economy, stupid" phrase should have died, too, and been replaced with another word that starts with E.
Emotion.
As with spending, so it goes with voting, where people make irrational purchases and political choices, then twist themselves into knots trying to explain their bad decisions. Only the humble have the nerve to admit they got it wrong and it often take them a while to get there.
There is a famous experiment in behavioural economics, where a group of people are divided into two. Half the people are given a free water bottle and told the water bottle is worth $10.
A week later, the group is brought back together and the water bottle owners are told to sell their bottles to the people that didn't get a water bottle. The buyers want to pay just $9 (that's a used water bottle) and the sellers want $11 (that's my water bottle!).
Both sides are wrong. The water bottle is still worth $10 but the sellers have invested themselves emotionally into something they own, while the buyers, annoyed that they didn't get a water bottle the week before, refuse to pay full value.
So it goes in politics, where the candidates people back are placed on a pedestal and the candidates they dislike are demonized, even when there is little to separate the actual candidates or their views.
Political analysts love to talk about how this issue or that issue influenced the outcome of an election. For example, the announcement by Adrian Dix in 2013 that the NDP would not approve the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline, no matter what, has been cited for the last four years to explain why the NDP's shocking loss and Christy Clark's surprising win.
These pundits imagine voters the way economists used to imagine consumers - as rational decision makers. They don't want to consider the obvious.
The Liberals won and the NDP lost because more voters, especially after the televised debate, liked Clark better than Dix. Furthermore, not enough voters were angry enough to change the government.
B.C. has been governed by a centre-right party - first Social Credit and now the Liberals since 1952. The NDP have won just three times in 55 years, first in 1972 and then consecutive elections in 1991 and 1996. The NDP won those elections not because people loved their party, their platform or their leader but because they were mad as hell at the centre-right party of the day and wanted them out.
There is no reason to believe this election will be any different. If John Horgan becomes premier, it will be because voters are sick and tired of Clark and he's the political beneficiary of their displeasure.
Local politics is soaked with emotion, as well. The proposed site for the new Prince George Transit operations and maintenance facility at 18th Avenue and Foothills Boulevard is just the latest example.
Citizen columnist Kathi Travers, as well as numerous letter writers, are furious, complaining about the proximity to the walking trails, a residential area, the Exhibition Grounds barns and the future home of the SPCA. That's a dirty, noisy facility, therefore it belongs in the BCR, the part of town where dirty, noisy businesses go, the argument goes. Forget the overall reduction in emissions from having the transit facility in the centre of the city, closer to the major bus routes, rather than on the southern outskirts. Forget the fact the walking trails will not be disturbed.
Forget the fact there is no city park there and almost none of the affected land is designated greenbelt space. Forget the fact the integrity of Cranbrook Hill will not be affected.
Forget the fact B.C. Transit is in the process of converting its entire fleet, including its Prince George buses, to compressed natural gas, which costs 25 per cent less than diesel and produces 15 to 25 per cent less greenhouse gas.
Angry, outraged voters make irrational decisions, from electing a rich reality TV star with no political experience to be president of the United States to getting rid of fluoride in the water supply against the recommendations of doctors and dentists to rejecting an integrated federal-provincial sales tax that saves everyone money and makes perfect fiscal sense.
Mayor and city council have to be careful, with a municipal election just 18 months away, that this transit facility doesn't turn into another Haldi Road recovery centre debacle with endless, highly-emotional public meetings and nothing to show for it by the time it's all over.
Whether it's water bottles, walking trails or election ballots, even the most mundane of choices, right or wrong, become emotional decisions.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
