The second debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was centered around the questions of “undecided” voters, and this drives home the essential reality that is playing out in the waning days of this critical election season: the attention of the presidential candidates. – as well as senate and congressional candidates – is fixed on that reportedly small sliver of voters – one out of 15 or 20 by most accounts – who still have not made up their minds.
Of course, it is hard to believe all of the people who asked questions at the Long Island debate were actually what they say they are – uncommitted – when you consider the premises of several questions. One tied gun rights together with unlawful violence, another was based on gender-based pay equity, and another seemed to have as its premise that Romney will likely be the outsourcer-in-chief depicted in the relentless ad hominem attacks on him by the Obama campaign, which have lost their resonance.
In any case, the swath of remaining undecided or “soft” voters are the subjects of tens of millions of dollars spent pandering to their every demographically-driven, focus group-tested preference.
Forget for a moment that, after almost four years of the Obama presidency, most everyone with even the mildest intellectual curiosity should know everything one would need to know about the incumbent. And that Mitt Romney has been in the public eye for much of the last five years, and prominently so over the last nine months. No, in watching the focus groups conducted by the cable networks, particularly after the vice-presidential debate, so many of these undecided voters lament or complain that the candidates have not yet answered their questions or provided sufficient information from which they can base their decision.
Really? Is it so hard to discern what Obama and Romney really stand for? I can not help but be struck by the apparent unwillingness of so many of these undecided voters to lift a finger to find out more about the candidates…at a time when a flood of information is available instantly and at your fingertips.
So how hard is it to find out where the candidates stand on the major issues of importance to almost any voter? In 10 minutes divided equally between the Obama and Romney websites, which of course appear instantly in any search, I was able to read complete biographies and detailed information about where each candidate stands on the economy, jobs, taxes, energy and foreign policy. And that is without accessing any of the millions of other sites evaluating the candidates’ positions.
Is it too much to ask voters to invest 10 minutes of their lives – that’s 7/10 of one percent of one day – in researching information on the two men with radically different visions who think they should be the leader of the free world at a critical time?
It is always fascinating to me when people say I don’t care about politics….as if the public offices won’t be filled if that person doesn’t care who fills them. Fact is, political junkies and know-nothings have the same one vote, and both will be governed and represented by somebody. To not care about who the president or your senator or congressman will be is akin to not caring about where you live. You’re going to have to live somewhere, even if you don’t like moving furniture.
An irony here is that these undecideds are not likely to make up their minds based on the issues about which they complain. If they did, they would have decided by now. Instead, they will vote primarily on character and other considerations of personality, style and background.
These voters are largely middle class, yet are being asked to make a decision based on a constant bombardment of ads telling them that Obama hates the rich and Romney hates the poor. The undecideds are neither, and are so uninformed that they can not process the polar opposite visions of the two candidates.
America’s founders built our constitutional republic on a foundation of one man, one vote. This was to serve as the antidote to no taxation without representation. They expected that the franchise they were granting to each and every citizen would be viewed as a cherished right, privilege and civic responsibility. And they were betting that the privilege would be taken seriously. For they knew that if it is not, we will elect nothing but smooth-talking demagogues and scoundrels appealing to the basest instincts of a disengaged, clueless population. But like so many of the founding principles that built America into the greatest nation in the world, that privilege has increasingly been ignored or taken for granted. Only about half of eligible voters actually vote.
We live in an age of endless information, but precious little wisdom. Let us hope that those who are still undecided about this election will invest just ten minutes between now and November 6 investigating just a microscopic percentage of all the information that is so readily available and make if not wise, at least informed decisions.
