FOCUSING ON UNDECIDED VOTERS: NOT A VERY SWIFT IDEA
By Arianna Huffington
I've decided: I've had enough of the undecideds.
Thanks to a tidal wave of polls, focus groups, Powerpoint
presentations,
slideshows, studies and laboratory dissections, we now know more about
undecided voters than we do about almost anyone else involved in the
2004
campaign - including the candidates themselves.
For instance, it turns out these irresolute souls are more likely to be
white than black, female than male, married than single, and live in
the
suburbs rather than large cities. They are less likely to think that
politics is relevant to their lives. They are likely to be younger and
less educated than the general electorate - but older and more affluent
than those who have committed to a candidate. Most will not make their
decision until the week before the election.
And, perhaps most important of all, undecided voters love cartoons,
talk
shows, "CSI: Miami", and reality shows like "Big Brother" and "Fear
Factor" (no word yet on whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi, boxers or
briefs, Alien or Predator - but I'm sure that info is being tabulated
by
some highly paid polling company as we speak).
The problem is, this fixation with all things undecided is threatening
to
turn a campaign that should be about big ideas, big decisions and the
very, very big differences between the worldviews of John Kerry and
George
Bush into a narrow trench war fought over ludicrous charges.
As a group, undecided voters long to be soothed and reassured. And the
danger in playing to this fickle crowd is that the message is tailored
not
to offend rather than to challenge and inspire.
Witness Kerry on Iraq, President Bush's greatest political liability.
"Before you go to battle," he said in his powerful and unambiguous
convention statement, "you have to be able to look a parent in the eye
and
truthfully say: 'I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son
or
daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the
American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was
real
and imminent.'"
That is the right message on Iraq, and the one he should stick to. And
if
undecided voters find it too bold and unmodulated, tough luck.
The repugnant non-story of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is an
irony-drenched exhibit A in the case against focusing on undecided
voters.
Consider: After being ardently wooed, courted, pursued and catered to
by
Team Kerry, a sizeable chunk of this capricious lot has taken the
noxious
bait being dangled by the anti-Kerry slime machine and swallowed it
hook,
line and stinker.
According to a new poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey, 46
percent of undecided and persuadable voters say they find the group's
vile
ads "very or somewhat believable".
Believable?! But then why are we surprised that the folks who are still
on
the fence nearly four years into one of the most disastrous and
polarizing
presidencies in American history find foaming-at-the-mouth accusations
that John Kerry might have shot himself because it would look good on
his
resume "believable"?
The 2004 election is nothing less than a referendum on the soul of our
country - a political event with unprecedented significance for our
lives
and the lives of our children. The Kerry campaign cannot allow it to
devolve into a debate over whether John Kerry bled enough to warrant a
Purple Heart.
And since no one can doubt that more scurrilous attacks are coming
Kerry's
way, it is imperative that in the future the right answers to all wrong
questions be offered immediately. And not for one moment should they
cause
the Kerry campaign to relinquish its attacks on the president's
failures
at home and abroad or cloud its alternative moral vision of what
America
can be with George Bush safely back in Crawford.
This is all the more important since, sadly, the media will continue to
make no distinctions in the volume and content of their coverage
between
true claims and false ones. According to the Annenberg study, nearly
six
in 10 people saw or heard the smears, despite a small ad buy in only
three
swing states - thanks to the obsessive, unfair and imbalanced media
coverage, which gave greater play to the politically motivated lies of
a
few than to the official Navy records.
By reframing the discussion on his terms and not Karl Rove's, Kerry
will
not only inoculate himself against the next round of smears, he will
also
go a long way toward expanding the electorate by convincing unlikely
voters - the 100 million eligible voters who didn't vote in 2000 - that
this election, and their participation in it, would make a huge
difference
in their lives and the life of our country.
And, as an added bonus, he could free himself from the soul-sapping
tyranny of trying to please and placate America's vacillating - and
terminally unreliable - undecided voters.
© 2004 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.
ariannaonline.com
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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