Why Do the Undecided Get to Play a Decisive Role?

Okay, you've lived in this fair country of ours for the last couple of years. You're sufficiently interested in the affairs of the country that you are willing to venture into the halls of Nashville's Belmont University to participate. You've then probably heard something about the candidates, who have been running, it seems, for the better part of this decade. But, you're undecided?

That's right, undecided after more than 500 days of electioneering, of candidates exhausting the electorate, their own vocabularies and, sometimes, their patience. Polls show that something less than 10 percent of our fellow citizens are "undecided".  Frankly, I worry about them. Are they irredeemable Myers-Briggs "Ps", able to see all sides.....until the sides ultimately pass away, enabling them to decide, in the immortal words of Harvey Cox, without deciding?

Okay, different, or slower, strokes for different folks. But, why, are these the folks who are somehow "representative" of us? It's the great undecided who have been selected to participate in tonight's Town Hall.

If I recall back to one of the (many) primary debates, it was the YouTube-sponsored ones that elicited some of the most interesting, out-of-the-box (not to mention out-of-the-Beltway questions). I note that the organizers have elicited questions from MySpace contributors. I hope they will be used.

Whoever asks the questions, we've seen so far, may not be the biggest question. The biggest question is who can ask a follow-up question? That's the lesson of this campaign so far, and why Katie Couric's interviews stand so far head and shoulders above the rote rigamarole we too often hear from the campaigns. Someone, the questioner -- or tonight, Tom Brokaw -- has got to say, as nicely or directly as they want: "You didn't answer the question. Here's a second chance."

That's what journalists are supposed to do, whenever they get the chance.

Comments

[Paul]

Well, last night your fears were realized. Your hopes for a real town hall debate with real question being asked by the audience dashed.

A real town hall/YouTube debate would have provided the unexpected. A chance to uncover something different, something unique about the candidates that would have supported or challenged our opinions of McCain or Obama prior to the debate. Alas, the questions were "reviewed and filtered." It turned into a stand up/Podium debate with chairs and an inability for candidates to stand in one place for more than 10 seconds. As far as the follow-up when a question was never answered, which seemed to occur from both candidates far too often… if you heard one, let me know.

As to the state of the undecided and your question “Why Do the Undecided still exist after an eternity of these candidates spewing their rhetoric to and fro like a fire-hydrant uncapped?” First answer these. Why do politicians speak one way to one audience and another way to different audience? Why has journalism found itself at the level of trust as the time-honored profession lawyers? Why does the President have the lowest approval record in history, and Congress even lower? Undecided maybe just a state of mind, the kingdom of irresoluteness. Or, it may be that they find it hard to believe or trust anybody anymore.

It is time for a real leader, and when you find one I will vote for him OR her.

Great post Ken.