Lovers have moments of thrills and chills.
Advertisers create mini-stories that touch the heart- to build brand identity, like the credit card ads that end with "priceless."
And every political candidate, if he or she is smart, tries to connect to voters from heart to heart, telling personal stories, evoking images that touch the heart, inspire, and at the very best, send shivers up the spine.
Obama could be the best at this in decades. Bill Clinton makes people feel personally attended to and liked. But Obama goes further. He evokes the magic of the thrill.
The Drug in the Thrill
We know that thrills and chills involve very specific body chemistry. One Stanford psychopharmacologist, Avram Goldstein, discovered that these feelings are mediated by endorphins, the natural opium-like chemicals that the body produces.
Goldstein found that Music, parades, moving moments in books and movies could all produce these chills up the back of the neck.
The research got massive media coverage, back in the eighties, because his research found that sex came in third or fourth among the experiences that produced these thrills. Music came in first.
So GOldstein had people listen to music that gave them thrills. Then, he gave them Naloxone-- a drug that blocks opiates. It's actually used in emergency rooms to treat heroin overdoses.
When people who usually experienced thrills listening music took the Naloxone, the thrills were blocked. That proved the endorphin/natural opiate connection.
Hillary Clinton doesn't have it. John Edwards doesn't have it. Neither of them can get people pumping endorphins, giving themselves a buzz, just by listening to a speech.
Obama is master conductor of voter edorphin moments. This is a very hard ability to beat.
But.... Goldstein found that only about half the subjects he studied actually experienced thrills of any kind.
That means that for the other half of the population, Obama will have to reach them the old fashioned way-- talking issues, convincing that he has the best package of personality, experience, values, ideas, visions... Still, being able to reach half the population, to reach directly to their neuroemotional system-- that's an ability any candidate would give his best campaign manager for.
Advertisers create mini-stories that touch the heart- to build brand identity, like the credit card ads that end with "priceless."
And every political candidate, if he or she is smart, tries to connect to voters from heart to heart, telling personal stories, evoking images that touch the heart, inspire, and at the very best, send shivers up the spine.
Obama could be the best at this in decades. Bill Clinton makes people feel personally attended to and liked. But Obama goes further. He evokes the magic of the thrill.
We know that thrills and chills involve very specific body chemistry. One Stanford psychopharmacologist, Avram Goldstein, discovered that these feelings are mediated by endorphins, the natural opium-like chemicals that the body produces.
Goldstein found that Music, parades, moving moments in books and movies could all produce these chills up the back of the neck.
The research got massive media coverage, back in the eighties, because his research found that sex came in third or fourth among the experiences that produced these thrills. Music came in first.
So GOldstein had people listen to music that gave them thrills. Then, he gave them Naloxone-- a drug that blocks opiates. It's actually used in emergency rooms to treat heroin overdoses.
When people who usually experienced thrills listening music took the Naloxone, the thrills were blocked. That proved the endorphin/natural opiate connection.
Hillary Clinton doesn't have it. John Edwards doesn't have it. Neither of them can get people pumping endorphins, giving themselves a buzz, just by listening to a speech.
Obama is master conductor of voter edorphin moments. This is a very hard ability to beat.
But.... Goldstein found that only about half the subjects he studied actually experienced thrills of any kind.
That means that for the other half of the population, Obama will have to reach them the old fashioned way-- talking issues, convincing that he has the best package of personality, experience, values, ideas, visions... Still, being able to reach half the population, to reach directly to their neuroemotional system-- that's an ability any candidate would give his best campaign manager for.
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