As a vet of two presidential campaigns, one in each party, I've been watching for a week now, puzzling and looking at crosstabs, and at last I'm prepared to say why I think Obama took a sudden nose-dive in the polls. It wasn't because he "lost" the first debate.
After the first debate, the patronizing term "low information voter" suddenly appeared mostly on the left, in conjunction with who's actually making their minds up from the debates.
It's a stupid term, and worse, it's a vicious term. Do you know who is actually undecided at this point? Just check the crosstabs of any poll.
It's typically a woman, typically age 50-60, typically white, and most importantly, typically she is working too hard to follow everything. (Those are sweeping generalizations--but I do encourage you to check). She doesn't know what Romney will do for her but she hasn't seen what Obama has done for her either. To her, contraception is not a big issue, but Medicare/Obamacare isn't a big issue either. It's a lifestage thing. She's insured to the hilt already and not worried about her future too much. But she barely has enough time at the end of the day to learn what's happening in the race.
People who are wagging fingers at this "low information voter" are driving her straight into the Romney camp even though he hasn't said he'd do a thing for such a voter either. This is how MSM inadvertently helped Obama nosedive: they picked up the "low information voter" meme, and naturally these people resent being classified as such, and they certainly resent being told what they should be thinking. Bigtime FUBAR for the left, and it was the supposedly left-leaning, certainly patronizing MSM that brought it all on, more than anything Obama did.
At any rate, "Low Information Voter" is far too patronizing a term for someone who's vote you're trying to win.
