Being open minded is excellent. Mindlessly altering one’s entire “belief system” based on the morning paper is idiocy.
Mindless is constantly voting the party line.
Right in conclusion, wrong in extrapolation, IMO. Low voter turnout doesn’t necessarily mean people are indifferent sheep. I’d guess many of 'em have gotten sick, tired and overloaded with the hype–on both “sides”.
Here’s to the new boss, same as the old boss…
I know plenty of people that all they talk about is the goverment and government policy. They don’t vote b/c they don’t believe their vote will change anything. Don’t confuse ‘caring less’ with a lack of faith that their vote matters.
TVeblen,
darn it. This is revenge for when I snuck in and out posted Coldfire that time isn’t it?
My, aren’t some of us feeling superior today?
I like the move “The Last Supper”. In it a bunch of pseudo-intellectual leftists invite over various bible-thumping right-wingers over for dinner.
Let’s just say everyone gets what they deserve.
Huh? What?
Nonsense, you weasel.
Just for that you’re going on my conspiracy board as well. See how you like that! 
Aha, you must be a middle-of-the-roader (rimshot).
I was actually commenting on the driveling idiocy (strategywise) of openly professing belief that a large bloc of voters are poopy-heads.
There are even vaster realms of disagreement with the OP (such as her conclusion that everyone except right and left-wing party-liners have no steadfast convictions), but that will do for now.
I agree with everything everyone has said.
It’s a bitch when someone disagrees with you.
It’s even more of a bitch when 40 million people disagree with you.
Is this thread the start of some SDMB One Trick Pony Christmas pageant?
Your OP refers to the “American Middle”, but then you say you’re not really talking about centrists.
The people you refer to don’t occupy a spot on a political spectrum…it’s silly to characterize them as “the middle”
“Undecided” does not equal “the middle”
It’s stupid to compare them to hardcore ideologues on the right or left, because for better or worse, they simply don’t care as much about those issues as you do, that’s one reason why their “opinions” change so frequently. It’s not a position on some political spectrum, they generally don’t occupy as spot on that spectrum, much less the “middle” that you thumb your nose at.
I’ve heard the same kind of tripe about “the middle” from Rush Limbaugh. Good company, that.
There is the middle that is composed of people whose opinions on a majority of issues are of the moderate variety. They are middle of the roaders in that they like compromise between the two sides of an issue. Those centrists are fine. They are thinking, and their moderate positions don’t change with the wind.
Then there is that statistical “middle” which my OP is referring to. That chunk that shifts with the wind. Last week, it was 57% yes, 43% no. This week, 45 % Yes, 55% No. When you look to see what could have happend to that 10% chunk to make them change their minds so quickly, it’s almost invariably one thing, usually one nearly meaningless thing that makes them shift all the way from one side to the other.
If this chunk of people didn’t exist, we would not see Bush’s ratings go up virtually overnight because Saddam Hussein was captured, which is only the latest example of the phenomenon, and it made absolutely no logical sense at all unless you have no consistent pov and you also can’t remember anything that happened before you ate breakfast this morning.
I just love the fact that Stoid, of all people, thinks she’s part of the intellectual elite.
Good point. It may be mere semantics but those are those folks I mentally characterize as swing voters, i.e. non-idealogues.
It’s probably a sterile exercise but I’ve become increasingly concerned that they’re the sensible backbone of voters who’ve become increasingly turned off by the hype on both sides. Some of 'em probably go with the ad blitz du jour the problem is much deeper than that.
One-issue and fanatic voters don’t concern me as much as those who’ve become so numbed they don’t even expect sensible truth telling about the government that represents them, locally or nationally.
“Undecided” is one thing. Deciding something different every other day is another.
I have complete respect for people who, over time, after getting a substantial amount of data, shift from one position to another, because that is evidence that the opinion is considered. Even when they come to the completely wrong conclusion, at least they made the effort. 
And I probably did use the wrong term by calling it the middle. But what else would you call it? They aint’ left, they ain’t right. Or rather, they keep hopping over that center line so fast it’s almost impossible to keep track.
Hey, how much of this 10% -a-changin’-in-the-winds is statistical error? +or- 10% error on a poll sounds reasonable to me. Then again, I’m no statistician.
Whatever.
Words to live by.
Knee jerk reactions? Yeah, that would be bad.