Why Obama won the health care battle

Drew Westen
Special to CNN

Politicians tend to think about how the minds and brains of voters work in one of two ways.

The first is to assume that voters come to decisions on issues like health care reform by carefully examining the data and the arguments and then calculating whether one plan or another better fits their rational self-interest. In this view, a campaign is a debate on the issues.

When you hear (or heard) Democratic strategists dismiss polls showing that the majority of Americans opposed the president's health care plan but support its component parts, this is the model of the mind of the voter they are assuming.
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