This fall’s ballot measures reflect the increasing importance and use of psychographics in Maine political campaigns. Originally used in advertising and marketing to denote lifestyle and consumer preferences, psychographics have become a valuable and useful tool in understanding Maine politics.

“Psychographic” refers primarily to the psychic imagery around which voters make decisions. It is a shorthand way of describing the “inner landscape” of the voters of Maine, the images they hold in their heads as they make public policy decisions. The use of psychographics turns out to be a highly valuable concept in determining why voters vote a certain way on certain issues at certain times and then vote another way at other times.

Part of this has to do with the basic and existing mind-set of the voters; that is, what imagery they bring to a particular referendum or issue? And part of it has to do with the ability of various campaigns to reinforce, change or obliterate the existing imagery, by substituting new images and new connotations to older cognitive maps.

For example, in the 1991 referendum to stop the widening of the Maine Turnpike, opponents of the turnpike were highly successful in the run up to the election by providing powerful word pictures of wetlands. These “sacred wetlands,” as they became known, and the wonderful ecosystems they contained were actually the drainage ditches to the side of the proposed wider highway.

Even though the “wetlands deficit,” which was to be offset with other created wetlands elsewhere, the power and majesty of the “sacred wetlands” concept overrode more pedestrian notions of what was at stake with many people. The upscale voters in the Portland suburbs, for example, voted against the widening in large part because of the environmental concerns.

In 1996, however, when the issue was reintroduced, the proponents of the widening superimposed another, more powerful image onto the sacred wetlands. This was the notion of traffic jams and the danger to one and all. Powerful and evocative commercials showing emergency workers trapped in traffic on the Maine Turnpike convinced voters that safety and emergency access were more important than worrying about the drainage ditches. The fact that so many of the upscale voters who had voted against the widening in 1991 had been stuck in traffic on their way to Boston in the intervening years didn’t hurt either.

Or take the example of forest practices issues. Here I have traced two archetypes over the past 20 years. The first is one of “The Wild Wild East,” with images of wilderness and forests where hunting and fishing is in a grand tradition and the scenery is magnificent, and trees are tall and cut, if at all, individually. The second is that of “The Industrial Forest” best captured by a Wilderness Society film featuring a gigantic, large-house sized machine coming through the woods, not only cutting every tree but literally picking them up by the trunks and shaking out the dirt from the roots.

The various debates over clear-cutting have taken place within the context of these two images. Psychographically, people tend to vote based on the archetype they start with and retain or which can be placed or superimposed onto in their initial image. The Forest Compact went down to defeat primarily because of the powerful imagery used at the end by opponents of the Compact who featured industrial-grade spraying threatening life and limb, children and grandchildren.

Conversely, in the forestry referendum of 2002, the carefully and lovingly tended plots of the small woodlot owners evoked a more positive and nostalgic look at the Great Maine Woods while the threat of sprawl was juxtaposed with a ban on clear-cutting which might have led to more cutting (since a landowner had to cut 20 percent of his or her trees every year or lose the right to cut them).

The Industrial Forest psychographic prevailed in the first two forestry referenda, while the Wild Wild East image took the third

The competing lifestyle and choices inherent in one’s inner world views are also at the heart of the two current major debates. Take the proposed Indian casino in Sanford. Do you have an image of Maine which precludes such a facility? Do you feel that the LL Bean outdoor, Wild, Wild (but slightly tamed) East image is at odds with a possible gambling facility of that size, magnitude and advertising scope? Or do you have an inner landscape holistic enough to include a Maine of casinos and a Maine of LL Bean? Either image will help you make up your mind on the referendum this fall.

In the tax reform and school funding measures, psychographic markers are also at work. For the 1A supporters, their inner landscapes provide a call for local control, a belief that the elected officials in small towns and cities know what is best for their citizens, better than the Legislature and bureaucrats in August and will, given a chance, improve education and reduce property taxes. For the 1B supporters, this inner landscape is perceived as chaotic and dominated by “the mob” and it must be countered by a dominant central authority model which uses “planning” and “projection” and “statistics” and extra-state models to subdue those who advocate local control.

In November, it will be interesting to see which inner landscapes cast the more powerful gravitational pull on the electorate. One thing seems certain, as the 21st century proceeds and there are more ballot measures and more public policy decisions decided each election cycle, the role of psychographics can only increase.

Individuals, groups, parties and corporations will only ignore these important aspects at their peril. These interior landscapes, these cognitive maps, give texture and meaning to the state’s political and demographic dimensions.

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