A friend sent me an email with the following explanation of why the 2008 Presidential election had the results it did.

I've been writing about how fear of loss is used to persuade voters to vote one way or another. This story illustrates the principle at work beautifully.

Start of Email Story

> It's all about the Ice Cream
>
> The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching
third grade
> in 2008. The presidential election was heating up and some of the
children
> showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class
> president. We would choose our nominees. They
> would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
>
> To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class
members.
> We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should
have. We
> got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to
run for
> the top spot.
>
> The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates
were
> good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got
lots of
> parental support. I had never seen Olivia's mother. The day arrived
when
> they were to make their speeches Jamie went first. He had specific
ideas
> about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to
do his
> very best. Every one applauded.
>
> He sat down and Olivia came to the podium. Her speech was concise.
She said,
> "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.
>
> The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."
>
> She surely would say more. She did not have to. A discussion
followed. How
> did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure. Would her
parents
> buy it or would the class pay for it. She didn't know. The class
really
> didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream. Jamie was
> forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.
>
> We have been offered ice cream, and fifty percent of America reacts
    like nine year olds. They want ice cream.
   The other fifty percent know we’re going to have to feed the cow.

End of Email Story

Note the orientation here. This is intended for those whose orientation is towards the belief they are being robbbed by those who are lazy and incompetent. This story could easily be rewritten to show the orientation of, "If you don't vote for me, you will get no more ice cream."

I think there is only a very small percentage chance this was written by an actual third grade teacher. Not that third grade teachers aren't intelligent or capable of writing well. But this has all the earmarks of a professional copywriter and I've simply read too many of these expertly constructed offerings supposedly written by "ordinary" people. This is a means of giving credibility to the writing. If you knew the author was a professional copywriter, then you would be much less likely to accept the content. This has all the style of others I've read.

In WWII, messages were sent out in code in teletype. The operators had a certain style in how they operated which intelligence analysts referred to as "fisting". Consider fisting to be a form of electronic handwriting analysis. Becasue of ths capability, analysts could associate operators with their units and determine where that unit was located.

Similarly, I detect a certain style I've seen elsewhere. I've got some others stored away and hopefully I'll have the time to post them analytically, as well.

I hope my pointing this out for you makes you much more critical of the next one of these type emails you receive. Please forward any you get to me so I can add to my collection.