With the sand in the 2008 campaign hourglass about depleted, Campbell is part of a stubborn wedge of people who, somehow, are still making up their minds about who should be president. One in seven, or 14 percent, can't decide or back a candidate but might switch, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll of likely voters released Friday.
Who are they? They look a lot like the voters who've already locked onto a candidate, though they're more likely to be white and less likely to be liberal. And they disproportionately backed Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed run for the Democratic nomination.
For now, their indecision remains intact despite the fortunes that have been spent to tug people toward either McCain, the Republican, or the Democrat Obama. Fueling their uncertainty is a combination of disliking something about both candidates and frustration with this campaign and politics in general.
Those who have already made up their minds for either John McCain or Barack Obama are not the target audience in the last days before the election. The target audience are the 14 percent that can still be persuaded to get out to vote for one candidate or another.
This is the reason it is still very important to get all the information out there, pound it home, hammer the points we find to be key to helping those undecided voters decide.
Two pieces in Washington Post today bring that to bear, speaking to those that have not decided yet with their arguments of why they believe those "persuadables" should vote for John McCain on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.
The first titled "In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money Into TV Ads," shows that McCain is going to make a final 72 hour push targeting those folks and the second is Charles Krauthammer's piece called "McCain for President, Part II."
Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists.
Charles Krauthammer's piece deals with economics and kitchen-table items.
The only people really listening to the candidates speeches and arguments right now, paying attention to help them decide instead of simply looking for one or the other to make a major gaffe, are those that have not yet determined who they will vote for in a manner where their minds cannot be changed.
Those are the target right now.
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