What is “unfortunate” is not the difficulty that the campaigns are having in “selling” their candidates to voters, but rather the extreme positions and character defects of their candidates. For all of the whining that Republicans do about taxes and high prices, and all the whining that Democrats do about “inequality,” and the “need” for all sorts of more government programs, think of what else might be accomplished with the billions wasted on political advertising (and commercial advertising too).
Although it is not true this year, I am often among the ranks of the "undecided voter" at this stage of an election (and, sometimes, right up to election day). I am, perhaps (in fact, likely) an outlier but I don't fit the demographic that either you or the campaigns hypothesize; and my reasoning is probably something that you might expect but that neither of the campaigns would (and certainly not what the campaigns desire).
This year, I will certainly vote for Harris/Walz. Or, perhaps not. It depends on how tight the race is in my state (NH) when we get to election day. I want to make sure that Trump doesn't win. But, if it is clear that Harris/Walz will prevail here despite whatever I may do, then I will cast a protest vote for some candidate that isn't from one of the two major parties.
Because, when it comes down to it, a vote for Harris/Walz will feel like voting for the one who will kill me more slowly -- or, in Charlie Sykes' formulation, like voting for the Cancer in order to avoid the Heart Attack.
I could comfortably have voted for a centrist Democrat (or a centrist Republican). I am loathe to cast a vote that encourages the progressive left (or the regressive right) in thinking that they have a mandate to remake the country in their image. Alas, that is how either side will interpret victory by even the smallest of margins. Both sides seem to think we are electing a King, not a President...
I have written a couple of times in the past about the plight of the undecided voter, as letters to the editor and in response to editorialists who have heaped scorn upon us as if we were imbeciles rather than in despair.
from November 2000
Recent letters and columns have treated undecided voters as pariahs, either too stupid or too lazy to figure out what they want or what the country needs. The letters and columns are not only disrespectful, they are wrong. Undecided voters know what they want and what the country needs; they just can’t find it in any of the candidates. They are not holding out waiting for gotchas or flourishes. They are not even waiting for a white knight to ride in and save the day. They are merely putting off an unpleasant chore, hoping against hope that one of the candidates will finally make a mistake and give them some clue as to which version of the truth about themselves and about their parties they actually believe.
And is that so bad? If everyone declared themselves “undecided” right up until election day, the candidates would be forced to keep talking to them instead of writing them off as either a “safe vote” or a “lost cause”.
from October 2012
For quite some time I have been enduring, without comment, the disdain, and downright vitriol, being heaped upon undecided voters. But your editorial cartoon today, depicting such voters as diners in a restaurant who have overstayed their welcome while the staff just wants to go home, was simply too far over the top to let it pass.
For the record: If I have to choose between shooting myself in the head or in the heart, can I be blamed for wanting to put off the pain for as long as possible?
But that aside, the election hasn’t been held yet! The fact that the 6-year-olds of the press can’t contain their curiosity doesn’t give them a right to my opinion or a right to force my choice!
If I was standing in the voting booth at 9 pm on election day holding up the counting, they would have a good reason to complain and I would deserve their scorn. But complaining now, in the middle of the evening rush, that I haven’t yet bothered to place my order is just childish petulance. Hey, you in the media! I don’t really care how tired you are. It’s not time to go home yet!
Right on with this. One of the things Suzy Miles, Trump's campaign manager found, was that a TON of phone calls and door knocks were NOT resulting in voters actually going to the polls, and they changed their methods. Richard Baris, on his "Inside the Numbers" podcast said exactly what you're saying yesterday. "Registered" Voters now are strongly pro-Trump (In some surveys, +17) so the tables have flipped. Where once Democrats wanted high turnout, now it's the GOP. Hence Miles & Trump's new emphasis on early voting. The stalwarts will be there on ED. It's these newly registered voters who are key. And boy are there a lot of them. In AZ, since 2020 the # of Republicans has DOUBLED to 250,000 net over Democrats; PA has seen a 600,000 D lead before 2016 fall to just over 100,000; FL went from D +about 400,000 in 2012 to R +800,000 today; NC has seen the D lead of 150,000 slashed by more than half. NV the same. So the new focus is NOT undecideds but getting out all these newly registered Rs.
Non-Party voters ARE NOT UNDECIDED!! We have absolutely decided that the Oligarchy controlling the Duopoly already controls both the DNC and the RNC and will control whichever of their candidates Americans are foolish enough to elect. Fomenting ideological hate will no longer convince the non-partied that we MUST vote for the lesser of the two evils because the other side has an IDEOLOGY we are programmed to hate. We know there is something wrong with that nonsense.
We want options! We want candidates that are not controlled by the biggest donors. We don't want a candidate who, as the media has recently reported, cannot be offered on the ballot until all the big donors sign off. We want someone who is a leader, not a puppet. We want all Americans to be proud of our President.
We want pragmatic policies that will benefit main street, NOT the richest donor class. We don't care about your ideological litmus tests! In spite of media and advertising ranting and raving that the ideological differences are important, we know they are not. We also can't be bribed. We understand that giving middle class tax dollars to a group, such as students with loans, in order to buy their votes is absolutely undemocratic and pits the bottom 70% against each other for the crumbs from the Oligarchs' table. "Every American who works hard should be able to have a good life" -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Not just those willing to vote for the party with the biggest handout promises.
We want to be able to select candidates that have not been approved by rich donors controlling both the DNC and the RNC. We want real primaries, where younger people with better ideas can make their case to the party faithful that they WILL do better than the status quo. And, since that is NOT happening, we demand the option to vote for independents and third parties!
Like the rest of the media, you have studiously ignored and actively suppressed information on Robert Kennedy's independent campaign, including in this article He is, in fact, exactly what the "undecided" and the unpartied and the unregistered want to see as an option! You should be ashamed to join the chorus ranting that people are REQUIRED to choose ONLY a party approved candidate or their vote won't count! Where are we? Russia?
What are the pragmatic issues this group wants to see addressed? According to RFK they are:
The corruption in Washington
The widening wealth gap
The endless wars
The chronic disease epidemic
The assault on our rights and freedoms
The destruction of the middle class
No ideology. No demographic pandering. No hate rhetoric. Discussion of these issues will bring out your "undecideds" because they will now see a true leader talking about issues that impact them. Unfortunately, by implying that voters really don't have a choice, you will indeed increase disengagement. What the undecided group wants is CHANGE and they know that neither party will give them that.
Relax and please stop slinging insults. I've written dozens of articles about this exact group of people over the past few years and wrote one specifically taking a fair look at RFK Jr. who only has himself to blame for his declining poll numbers. This current article is about the 5-6 percent undecided -- by definition those who haven't chosen either of the two party nominees or any third-party nominee or even decided to vote. Undecideds are not third-party voters in this definition. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/what-is-rfk-jrs-pitch-to-voters
I completely agree with everything you said in your first four paragraphs, and I wish that both parties would take your advice! I am not an RFK supporter, and wish that the options included candidates who are not wealthy and not members of political dynasties.
True, there's a lot of guesswork, but is there some reason to believe undecided voters have different priorities than the vast majority of voters who consistently say inflation, the economy and immigration are their top issues?
On the issues that's probably true. It's the other intangibles that make them hard to figure out -- such as how they conceive of the candidates, other side issues that really animate them, basic disdain for politics and parties.
What is “unfortunate” is not the difficulty that the campaigns are having in “selling” their candidates to voters, but rather the extreme positions and character defects of their candidates. For all of the whining that Republicans do about taxes and high prices, and all the whining that Democrats do about “inequality,” and the “need” for all sorts of more government programs, think of what else might be accomplished with the billions wasted on political advertising (and commercial advertising too).
Although it is not true this year, I am often among the ranks of the "undecided voter" at this stage of an election (and, sometimes, right up to election day). I am, perhaps (in fact, likely) an outlier but I don't fit the demographic that either you or the campaigns hypothesize; and my reasoning is probably something that you might expect but that neither of the campaigns would (and certainly not what the campaigns desire).
This year, I will certainly vote for Harris/Walz. Or, perhaps not. It depends on how tight the race is in my state (NH) when we get to election day. I want to make sure that Trump doesn't win. But, if it is clear that Harris/Walz will prevail here despite whatever I may do, then I will cast a protest vote for some candidate that isn't from one of the two major parties.
Because, when it comes down to it, a vote for Harris/Walz will feel like voting for the one who will kill me more slowly -- or, in Charlie Sykes' formulation, like voting for the Cancer in order to avoid the Heart Attack.
I could comfortably have voted for a centrist Democrat (or a centrist Republican). I am loathe to cast a vote that encourages the progressive left (or the regressive right) in thinking that they have a mandate to remake the country in their image. Alas, that is how either side will interpret victory by even the smallest of margins. Both sides seem to think we are electing a King, not a President...
I have written a couple of times in the past about the plight of the undecided voter, as letters to the editor and in response to editorialists who have heaped scorn upon us as if we were imbeciles rather than in despair.
from November 2000
Recent letters and columns have treated undecided voters as pariahs, either too stupid or too lazy to figure out what they want or what the country needs. The letters and columns are not only disrespectful, they are wrong. Undecided voters know what they want and what the country needs; they just can’t find it in any of the candidates. They are not holding out waiting for gotchas or flourishes. They are not even waiting for a white knight to ride in and save the day. They are merely putting off an unpleasant chore, hoping against hope that one of the candidates will finally make a mistake and give them some clue as to which version of the truth about themselves and about their parties they actually believe.
And is that so bad? If everyone declared themselves “undecided” right up until election day, the candidates would be forced to keep talking to them instead of writing them off as either a “safe vote” or a “lost cause”.
from October 2012
For quite some time I have been enduring, without comment, the disdain, and downright vitriol, being heaped upon undecided voters. But your editorial cartoon today, depicting such voters as diners in a restaurant who have overstayed their welcome while the staff just wants to go home, was simply too far over the top to let it pass.
For the record: If I have to choose between shooting myself in the head or in the heart, can I be blamed for wanting to put off the pain for as long as possible?
But that aside, the election hasn’t been held yet! The fact that the 6-year-olds of the press can’t contain their curiosity doesn’t give them a right to my opinion or a right to force my choice!
If I was standing in the voting booth at 9 pm on election day holding up the counting, they would have a good reason to complain and I would deserve their scorn. But complaining now, in the middle of the evening rush, that I haven’t yet bothered to place my order is just childish petulance. Hey, you in the media! I don’t really care how tired you are. It’s not time to go home yet!
-apl
Right on with this. One of the things Suzy Miles, Trump's campaign manager found, was that a TON of phone calls and door knocks were NOT resulting in voters actually going to the polls, and they changed their methods. Richard Baris, on his "Inside the Numbers" podcast said exactly what you're saying yesterday. "Registered" Voters now are strongly pro-Trump (In some surveys, +17) so the tables have flipped. Where once Democrats wanted high turnout, now it's the GOP. Hence Miles & Trump's new emphasis on early voting. The stalwarts will be there on ED. It's these newly registered voters who are key. And boy are there a lot of them. In AZ, since 2020 the # of Republicans has DOUBLED to 250,000 net over Democrats; PA has seen a 600,000 D lead before 2016 fall to just over 100,000; FL went from D +about 400,000 in 2012 to R +800,000 today; NC has seen the D lead of 150,000 slashed by more than half. NV the same. So the new focus is NOT undecideds but getting out all these newly registered Rs.
Non-Party voters ARE NOT UNDECIDED!! We have absolutely decided that the Oligarchy controlling the Duopoly already controls both the DNC and the RNC and will control whichever of their candidates Americans are foolish enough to elect. Fomenting ideological hate will no longer convince the non-partied that we MUST vote for the lesser of the two evils because the other side has an IDEOLOGY we are programmed to hate. We know there is something wrong with that nonsense.
We want options! We want candidates that are not controlled by the biggest donors. We don't want a candidate who, as the media has recently reported, cannot be offered on the ballot until all the big donors sign off. We want someone who is a leader, not a puppet. We want all Americans to be proud of our President.
We want pragmatic policies that will benefit main street, NOT the richest donor class. We don't care about your ideological litmus tests! In spite of media and advertising ranting and raving that the ideological differences are important, we know they are not. We also can't be bribed. We understand that giving middle class tax dollars to a group, such as students with loans, in order to buy their votes is absolutely undemocratic and pits the bottom 70% against each other for the crumbs from the Oligarchs' table. "Every American who works hard should be able to have a good life" -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Not just those willing to vote for the party with the biggest handout promises.
We want to be able to select candidates that have not been approved by rich donors controlling both the DNC and the RNC. We want real primaries, where younger people with better ideas can make their case to the party faithful that they WILL do better than the status quo. And, since that is NOT happening, we demand the option to vote for independents and third parties!
Like the rest of the media, you have studiously ignored and actively suppressed information on Robert Kennedy's independent campaign, including in this article He is, in fact, exactly what the "undecided" and the unpartied and the unregistered want to see as an option! You should be ashamed to join the chorus ranting that people are REQUIRED to choose ONLY a party approved candidate or their vote won't count! Where are we? Russia?
What are the pragmatic issues this group wants to see addressed? According to RFK they are:
The corruption in Washington
The widening wealth gap
The endless wars
The chronic disease epidemic
The assault on our rights and freedoms
The destruction of the middle class
No ideology. No demographic pandering. No hate rhetoric. Discussion of these issues will bring out your "undecideds" because they will now see a true leader talking about issues that impact them. Unfortunately, by implying that voters really don't have a choice, you will indeed increase disengagement. What the undecided group wants is CHANGE and they know that neither party will give them that.
Relax and please stop slinging insults. I've written dozens of articles about this exact group of people over the past few years and wrote one specifically taking a fair look at RFK Jr. who only has himself to blame for his declining poll numbers. This current article is about the 5-6 percent undecided -- by definition those who haven't chosen either of the two party nominees or any third-party nominee or even decided to vote. Undecideds are not third-party voters in this definition. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/what-is-rfk-jrs-pitch-to-voters
I completely agree with everything you said in your first four paragraphs, and I wish that both parties would take your advice! I am not an RFK supporter, and wish that the options included candidates who are not wealthy and not members of political dynasties.
True, there's a lot of guesswork, but is there some reason to believe undecided voters have different priorities than the vast majority of voters who consistently say inflation, the economy and immigration are their top issues?
On the issues that's probably true. It's the other intangibles that make them hard to figure out -- such as how they conceive of the candidates, other side issues that really animate them, basic disdain for politics and parties.