Caucus Me!

The fabled 'undecided voter' has always been good fodder for humor (like this classic Daily Show segment from 2004). So why stop now? My favorite article on them was this 2006 piece by Christopher Hayes, from The New Republic. Here he discusses his experiences with them-

"Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We're giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil."

He does note, though, that "the caricature of undecided voters favored by liberals and conservatives alike doesn't do justice to the complexity, indeed the oddity, of undecided voters themselves."

This article came back into my mind because of a taped segment Bill Maher ran during his show last night (no doubt now looking for new ways to fill time without written, scripted parts). He went to a local market to ask people who they're planning to vote for... and why. The results were equally hilarious and depressing.