If you happen to be unfortunate enough to live in a "battleground" state, there is too much noise on the airwaves that it's hard to filter the static from the actual facts, unless you go out and actually read up on the various claims.
Also, most people just don't understand what private equity is. They have heard how much money there is to be made in it, and so they hold someone who does it in an initially high regard, like people used to think about someone who had a doctorate degree. Now if you have a doctorate, people will give you the skance look, like "Oh, there's one of those out of touch ivory tower types." If you drive a Bentley, regardless of what you did to get it, most people will have the first thought, "I want to be buddies with that guy!" Don't fool yourself that money doesn't have sex appeal to the average American.
But somewhere in deep in their subconsciousness, there is still a misgiving, like: would I really trust that guy to babysit my kids? But they just don't have time to dig down and do their own due diligence. The ones who are gullible (call them Type I) just tune in to their network of choice and accept what they hear after it gets repeated enough times - the imprint starts to form gradually until finally it's election day and wham-o, they "decide". Thankfully, we didn't see much of that at the town hall debate audience, which actually surprised me.
The other folks (call them Type II) don't trust what they hear in the media, so nothing is going to make up their minds until they do their own due diligence, which they don't have time and/or the motivation to do. They are likely to find something more important to do every time the choice is presented to them, including when it's time to show up at the polls on election day. They make up the "I forgot to leave work early", or "the line was too long" crowd. He / she is putting off making his/her mind up, hoping that something will emerge that makes the due diligence unnecessary - an unguarded Howard Dean moment - a Eliot Spitzer / John Edwards type scandal - something that will be irrefutable fact and FORCE their hand.
Now if you had to take the undecideds, and split them along lines of education, intelligence and work ethic, and then look at how that division breaks down between Type I and Type II. That will put into perspective why Obama really has to get to the type II's and actively make his case to them personally, directly, and with lots of facts... while Romney can just sit back and let conservative talk radio sing his hollow praises every day during the morning commute, and eventually the imprint become indelible for the Type I's.
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