Last week I wrote a diary entitled "My Mother, the Undecided." I spoke of how I talked her off of the fence and finally made her comfortable with doing what I know she wants to do -- vote for Barack Obama. My mother's undecidedness probably stemmed from some sort of unconscious racism and irrational fear of "re-distribution of wealth" to "welfare queens." Still, she knows Obama is brilliant and a good person. She knows that the Republicans have taken the country in the wrong direction and that McCain would be four more years of the same (or possibly worse). And she knows that Sarah Palin is an utterly unqualified far-right-winger that has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
My mother is one kind of undecided voter: The voter who's been paying attention and cares about this election, but will need to actually get in the voting booth before she finally makes up her mind for one reason or another. Ultimately, it's my mother's soft racism that keeps her from providing "sticky support" to Obama now. By the same token, ultimately it is her inherent goodness and concern for the economic well-being of herself and her family that will cause her to pull the lever for Obama.
This week, I'd like to tell you about my friend the undecided. He's a completely different character than my mother, and is undecided for totally different reasons. Yet, like my mother, the portrait of my friend debunks the notion that the undecideds are stupid, crazy, or so racist that they will never vote for Obama (and just haven't told that to the pollsters yet).
My friend the undecided is a medical resident living in Atlanta. Even at his young age, he's one of the most brilliant doctors I know. He comes from a family of doctors, and he grew up fairly wealthy. He certainly has never hurt for anything in his life.
His parents came from Nebraska and Kansas. Both of his parents were raised on farms, and when his grandparents were alive my friend would spend Christmas vacation on those farms, snapping the necks of chickens with his bare hands and cooking them for dinner later that night.
My friend the undecided is not a hick, though. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He went to college at Notre Dame, often traveling to Chicago on the weekends. He went to medical school in Houston. While my friend the undecided is the type of person that flees to the safety of a gated suburban community or an affluent condo association when he can, he has experience with diversity and poverty. His American experience is far more urban than rural.
I spoke with my friend the undecided last night about a traffic ticket that he received the day before. He was asking my advice about how to handle the situation. At the end of our conversation, I asked, "So, have you decided on a presidential candidate yet? Your state is in play, you know." He responded, "Really? Georgia's in play? Usually it's pretty Republican, isn't it? I really haven't done any research on the Obama and McCain's positions yet, so I'm really not sure who I'm going to vote for. I've been paying too much attention to my fantasy football. I was thinking maybe I'd vote for McCain just to be loyal, him being from Arizona and all. But the stock market sucks, so maybe Obama would be better at fixing that."
I pivoted to Palin. "You know," I said, "if you want to vote for McCain, then you better be comfortable with President Palin, because you know there's a good chance that McCain wouldn't make it through his term." He said, "Oh, I know! I totally think he wouldn't make it. And I hate Palin. It was funny, my friend the other day is a Republican but he said that there's no way he's voting for McCain because he just thinks Palin is the worst."
I then told my friend the undecided that "McCain's a carpetbagger. He's not really from Arizona." My friend said he didn't know that and conceded that this would eliminate considerations of state loyalty.
He then said, "I know you're real strong for Obama, right?" I guess my one concern is is that I'm going to be making $70,000 a year because Democrats want to cap the salaries of doctors." I responded, "Well, look, Obama wants to get healthcare costs under control. But the plan that he has looks to cut unnecessary costs first. It tries to bring the costs of drugs under control by letting Medicare negotiate with drug companies. And it eliminates the waste of unnecessary tests you were talking about in April by putting medical records online. It's not government control of medicine. The government's only real involvement would be opening up the Congressional health plan to any American that wanted to pay into it."
His respons was surprising. "Look, I believe in universal health care. I would even be okay with single payer. Most of the time I'm dealing with Medicare anyways, and they're pretty good compared to private insurance companies. I'm just worried that the Democrats want to cut reimbursement rates so much that I'll have $200,000 worth of debt from medical school and I'll be making $70,000 after my residency."
I assured him that he'd never be in that position. No one was talking about cutting doctors salaries from $500,000 to $70,000. I told him that the solvency of Medicare and the healthcare system in general was in his long term economic interests. And I also told him that he'd be making investments in the stock market with his hard-earned doctor salary, and so he'd want the stock market to do well too. He agreed. Ultimately, he told me that he'd probably vote Obama, if only because he can't stand Palin.
The two biggest lessons I drew from my conversation were these: First, undecideds come in all stripes. I've been wriging my hands over whether undecideds are racists who just will never support Obama. This is just false. Sometimes the undecided in question is a smart guy that's just been too busy with fantasy football to make up his mind yet. Indeed, looking back at the primaries, Obama seemed to have get a vast majority of the undecided voters in Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Second, for this type of undecided voter, perhaps the most effective tool of persuasion is pointing at Sarah Palin. It's a guaranteed way to at least push the undecided away from John McCain.