AP: 1 in 7 Voters Undecided - good god, who are these people?

[ksoze]

Hard to believe - being used now as McCain fodder since most are white and will break to him.

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-changeable-voters

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. It's A Online Poll

~

[ksoze]

7. Not really, according to the notes

"The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free. "

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Hmmm

It's not scientific...

They are adding another layer to the interviewing process...

[Blondiegrrl]

2. I think a lot of those undecideds will never make it to the polls.

Undecided = not paying attention = don't care enough to stand in line for 6 hours to vote

Fortunately, even if the majority of those undecideds DID vote, and voted for McCain, it wouldn't be enough to close the gap.

[palintology]

5. I had similar thoughts.

[RoadRage]

3. 25% of the people I talked to while I was phone banking

Tuesday night were still undecided. A lot were Democrats. UGHGH.. I was VERY polite, said I totally understand (which I don't - but I figured killing them with kindness would only help) and asked what questions they had about Obama or his policies that I might be able to clear up.

NONE of them had any questions.. they all knew where Obama & McCain stood on the issues... a lot of them just didn't agree wholely with either.

A lot of them are against abortion or gay rights, but yet are very interested in having health care for everyone or they do think we need to get the heck out of Iraq.

So, a lot of these "Undecideds" are trying to weight everything... and figure out who comes out on top. It's not that their "idiots" or uneducated.. it's that they haven't been swayed by either camps rhetoric.. and are really focusing on how important each campaigns issues relate to them.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. That sounds right to me

The only reason I could see a person being undecided wouldn't be from lack of information, but rather from a conflict within themselves. I could see someone who is "pro-life", for example, realizing that everything else McCain stands for goes against their self-interest. So they are conflicted. The fact that their religious leaders haven't been able to persuade them as of yet to vote McCain is telling, imho. I think the thing to do for these folks is to ask them to look at the records of the Democrats and Republicans. When Clinton was Pres, the number of abortions went down. When the GOP had complete power, they did nothing to ban abortions, and, in fact, the number of abortions performed has gone up.

[my3boyz]

9. What state? Please say you were not making calls in a battleground state...nt

[RoadRage]

14. Omaha, NE.. a battleground for 1 electoral vote.

It'll be a mental victory if we win here... but if we lose, it won't cost us the election. ;)

And, it our "Red" state.. people tend to be socially conservative, but they're feeling the pinch in their pockets, they want healthcare, and they're sick of the war. So that's why there are so many undecideds.

[drm604]

13. How was that phone banking list compiled?

Maybe the list consists of undecideds and the intent is to persuade them, or at least to determine which ones have decided for Obama so they can be contacted for GOTV.

[RoadRage]

15. We're calling ALL Registered Voters in the 2nd congressional district

In Nebraska.. Omaha. Trying to get Obama 1 of our 5 electoral votes, because we split our EV's.

I was calling Dems, Republicans, and Independents. 70% of Dems were going Obama.. 10% were going with McCain... and 20% still were undecided.

I'd say about 25% of the Republicans I'd talked to were still undecided as well.. they were sick of Bush, and not thrilled with McCain

Independents still seemed to be about 50/50 for Obama / McCain. And, about 20% undecided. It's gonna be close!

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Not scientific. CNN ran one this week - only 7% undecided.

Good time to ignore any single polls and just look at trends and aggregates on good sites like realclearpolitics.com or fivethirtyeight.com.

[faithfulcitizen]

6. People who won't vote anyway.

[FloridaGrl]

11. There is also the possibility

that so-called undecided voters are people who aren't willing to admit they are voting for Obama for one reason or the other. McCain paints himself as the underdog because he's behind but Obama is the real underdog. I believe most McCain supporters will openly say they are voting for him but some Obama voters might hold back. My friend was telling me of a conversation she had with her neighbor who told her that he's voting for Obama because of the economy and he believes McCain would be more like Bush. He ended by saying he'd never admit that to anyone else.

[Schulzz]

12. 1 in 7 is misleading - they count weak supporters of either candidate as undecided. nt

[Marrah_G]

16. People that don't follow politics. We live in a bubble here

We often forget there are people out there who rarely think about politics.