What Primaries Are For (Being undecided is not a mark of seriousness or intelligence)

National Review ^ | January 28, 2004 | Jonah Goldberg

[quidnunc]

Right, Left, and whatever.

It's one of the funnier ironies of American presidential politics that the people who fancy themselves to be the most politically informed boast the silliest rationale for how they vote. I'm referring of course to "independents." There are two kinds.

The first are the serious independents. Their shtick goes something like this: "I'm an independent-minded guy (or gal), I don't let the parties do my thinking for me. I choose each individual candidate based on his or her individual merits. I am a very discerning and thoughtful person." If you've ever listened to C-SPAN, you've heard from these people. They sound like midlevel college administrators with chips on their shoulders. They don't want to be pigeon-holed, cookie-cut, "defined" by "mere labels" that don't take into account their discerning eye for the odd policy detail. "Did you know that candidate so-and-so doesn't have a policy on saving the manatees? Or didn't you do your homework?" They brag about how they look at every issue without ideological blinders on, and how they'll be damned if they are going to vote for a candidate merely because of "partisanship." They want to hear about issues and experience.

In the second group are the "undecided" independents.

These are the people we hear from the most in the final weeks of any presidential campaign, largely because politicians are going to hunt where the ducks are and, duh, the undecideds haven't decided yet. After every presidential debate of the general election, there's a focus group filled with undecideds; they're treated like Olympic judges rather than astoundingly uninformed citizens. They complain that they didn't get enough information from the candidates, or they didn't get enough "details" on this or that policy. They ape Rodin's Thinker over whether to choose George W. Bush or Al Gore, Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, Poppy Bush or Michael Dukakis.

-snip-

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

Being "undecided"means you can't make decisions let alone timely ones.Those people are a pain and obviously do not live with any degree of conviction.

[Yaelle]

Best are the Hollywood liberals in a primary. They don't know WHO to support so they huddle like sheep in the back until someone pulls out in front. They only want to back a winner and beat the Pubbies.

[hoosierpearl]

This is a good article. I heard an interview of undecideds last week in New Hampshire, and these people were treated like they were representative of the entire electorate. Their reasons for liking particular candidates were superficial and sounded like they could have come from a junior high school girl. Never from any of these people did I hear anything about voting record of a senator or what his stand was on any particular issue, nor whether or not he had ever changed his mind on an issue.
I hope this degree of dumbness is not typical of most voters. It stinks, it scares you to think some dummy like this could decide an election.

[tiamat]

Sadly, most of them are dumb as posts.

[KC_Conspirator]

I heard an interview of undecideds last week in New Hampshire, and these people were treated like they were representative of the entire electorate.

I noticed that too. All it took for them was to see someone in person and then they were voting for said politicain. I also noticed that a bunch of them had Massachussetts accents as well.

[OldFriend]

Oh these folks knew exactly for whom they were voting. They just weren't about to announce it PROUDLY.

They didn't vote on principle, they voted on who they thought might get the nod from the media to beat President Bush. The issues mattered not at all. Clearly because all had begun to sound so very Dean-ish. He moved them off the cliff to the far left.

The independents were simply ashamed to admit they agreed with the hate rhetoric.

[NutCrackerBoy]

The time to be discerning — to pore over every jot and detail of a candidate's platform — is not during the general election, but during the primaries...The modern presidency involves thousands upon thousands of political appointments, and these folks are drawn nigh-upon exclusively from the ranks of their own party — which in very broad brushstrokes has its own agenda, regardless of who's at the top.

My dear father was known to say that about self-described independent voters. I mean surely you must know your own overall philosophy. If you are unaware that you are also voting in a whole party-based apparatus, then you are not paying attention. BJ Clinton "ran to the center", but look into any office like the Civil Rights Admin. and you will see entrenched lefties that he encouraged.