Originally posted by Wotan Undecided voters may just not vote at all. I can't imagine many of them suffering through the entirety of Lieutenant Kerry's speech or watched much of the DNC's pep rally. Is there a poll that separates the truly "undecided" from the "uninformed" or "unconcerned"?
[/B]
In the aggregate, uninformed/disinterested voters tend to distribute themselves randomly between both parties. As such, their votes essentially cancel each other out. The small core of truely undecided but interested voters makes the difference between success and failure for candidates.
The poll numbers themselves are of little value as they will rise and fall. The point my post was to contrast the impression of the convention and speeches some of the Kerry supporters on this forum portrayed.
[/B]
I think posters here discredit polls too much. I can assure you that both campaigns take poll results
very seriously and follow them with extreme interest despite what they say in public. Obviously polls vary day to day with some randomness, but if you aggregate all of the polls nationwide over the last six months you should notice particular non-random trends. However, we do not know if the current "bounce" represents a permanent, long-term change to the polls or merely represents a short-term "spike" that returns to the original level of support over time.
-- Todd/Leviathn
