Why people 'vote against their own interests' ?

[TheKentuckian]

36. For most people that is the only option.

One may make a choice worse than the other but in any event there will be considerable efforts against their interests.

You can't play labor party when every time we get into power we are literally itching to put a new "free trade" agreement in place and took an epic meltdown to get off the deregulation bandwagon and then only to a degree.

Hell, it was like the first order of business was to go after the teachers, second was shelving card check and union supports, next thing we know we are leading the charge benefits traded for in years of painful concessions, then on to freezing pay for Federal workers, and then on to push Bush's stalled "free trade" deals before getting to work in earnest on a new secret, super "free trade" deal.

All the while we've had several Democratically initiated austerity commissions proposing all kinds of nonsense with all kinds of concessions offered, saved by TeaPubliKlan intransigence until finally an automatic trigger promises to make a start and the banging away can continue after the election. "Eat your peas" isn't a big seller.

You also can't be a labor party and be openly disdainful of it or give the impression that turning wrenches, or working the assembly line, or being a tradesman is lesser or not a career. Even the constant focus on college degrees probably is a turn off, even for those who value a higher education. There is Yuppie-centric air that has been cultivated and it doesn't connect and allows the party of the wealthy to talk folksy, chop wood, go hunting, drive trucks, and talk about God and actually make a better connection though it isn't a millimeter deep.
Many voters failing to see a definitive difference to their lives will vote for the person they identify with regardless of wonky policy proposals (that sound like a screw job or are confusing) that are both essential and promise to change nothing, soaring rhetoric, or how fiercely fingers are pointed (even when deservedly so).