Those (not so) undecideds...

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

Looking at those CNN polls that Wolf Blitzer just showed confirmed to me something that I've been posting about here several times in recent days--that those 4 to 8 percent of "undecided" voters include anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of those who plan to vote for (or have already) for Bob Barr, Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. The numbers add up to about 99 percent. So...where are those famous "undecideds"?

This had been my suspicion for quite a while. They haven't routinely reported the totals for Barr, etc....but miraculously the totals were always adding up to near 100 percent. All I'm saying here is that--for whatever reason--we've been jerked around a little, led to believe that there are as many as eight percent of the voting population that are undecided, and who (some say) will break at the last minute for John McCain. Once a reasonable adjustment has been made for third party voters, that significant block of undecideds vanishes almost completely.

The totals for Barr, Nader and McKinney varied, of course, from one state to another, but were mostly at least three percent, and in at least one state was five percent. All due credit to CNN for giving us a more accurate picture of these poll results, and a big "shame on you" to all the others (...including, of course, the McCain camp).

[livedemocarticordie]

1. Thank for bringing this

up because frankly those folk had fallen off my radar

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

2. I have to retract my praise for CNN;

Their website has McCain, Obama, and "Unsure"...and miraculously in every state they add up to 100 percent. This is completely different from what they showed on television this evening...when showing Barr, Nader, and McKinney to the mix. Something's amiss here...either the two-person race numbers, or the five-way ones. Again, I have every reason to believe that those "unsures" are being improperly and highly over-reported.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/map/polling/

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

3. Further comfirmation that we're being bamboozled...

At the link below, notice the numbers in these states. Notice that they show "other" (e.g. Barr, Nader, McKinney) and then "undecided". Notice how low the undecideds are.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=7283ffa7-828d-4345-b44c-7e6a908196cc

Mischief? Maybe. For whatever reason (laziness or worse) most of the MSM are lumping "other" and "undecided" together and calling it all "undecided." No wonder the total is as high as 8 percent in some polls...when only 3 percent or less are actually undecided. Any way you cut this, it's sloppy or downright unscrupulous reporting.

Why is this important? McCain is promising this big wave of undecideds coming to his rescue in these final days of the campaign, when in reality those numbers may be as low as one percent. (And how many of those will actually vote?) Is this important? In a close race, you bet it is!