Cspan had one of their Undecided voter focus group panels today. A mixture of republican and democratic swing voters.
25 people participated.
The panel was sponsored by AARP but, the group was a mix of middle class people from young to old and in Minneapolis.
It was live and the panel conductor was Frank Luntz (I know but, he was acting in a non-partisan role today).
It was very interesting and they asked about the veeps and the last question was who would they vote for if they had to today.
More after the jump...
There were 3 rows of people. Mix of men and women and they leaned older but, there were 2 younger adults in the group. Only one african american and it was a female.
Behind the darkened glass was a group of reporters including Roll Call and Time's Joe Klein.
It was Live.
Luntz began with Social Security and many said they wanted specifics but, when pushed to define many wanted it so specific as to down the dollars and cents as far as their own income. Not how the program is implemented, ect. but, throughout the group kept answering for the issues they wanted more specifics and what they wanted was a far as their own personal income is concerned. No one can address it down to the penny for each individual person. They are wanting far too much in specifics.
The second went into Health Care with the same demand in specifics. I find it unrealistic.
I noticed the clips of McCain in addressing Social Security is that he gave no real specifics on anything. Obama's clips were from a policy speech and he gave regular specifics.
In Health Care, again McCain gave more vague answers in health care then Obama in the clips.
However, Obama tested much better in his proposals then McCain.
The second part was ads from AARP and Together we Fall. The ones about demanding the politicians be held accountable and for more bi-partisanship.
The last was on the veeps. Biden was seen as a smart pick by Obama by everyone.
Palin had a few women who liked her but, never saw the introduction rally on Friday or knew anything more then just some vague facts like Gov. of Alaska.
But, she still was seen as a bad choice and not a positive for McCain by most of the group.
Luntz played a few clips from the rally and asked afterward if they had a better impression or worse of Palin. About 3/4 said worse impression. Two even went from leaning McCain to leaning Obama.
Luntz asked alot more about her because it was a much more important focus then Biden for the testing. Biden is well known and was overwhelmingly seen as a positive.
After this the journalists were brought out to do a q and a but, it was not that much. A couple of questions.
It seems the most important issue for the group overall was Accountability.
When the journalists wanted to know why most cited the Bush Administration and lack of accountability demanded of them and people seen this as one of the big causes of the problems we are in. Some even cited the contractors in Iraq and how our money is paying for this.
The last question asked by Luntz was who would they vote for if they had to vote today.
9 picked McCain and the rest of the 25 chose Obama.
If this is typical of the country then I would say that what people want is answers for the Bush mess and for them to be held accountable, more specifics but, that is up to interpretation.
Biden is a very popular choice for veep for Obama and Palin is not for McCain.
And more people will vote for Obama.
These are the blue collar to middle class mostly older white voter.