Nearly 50 percent of voters likely to participate in the Democratic Primary are still up for grabs according to recent polls.
Right now, voters are busy checking websites, tracking campaign news and attending events. At the same time, committed political activists are making the rounds, trying to convince undecided voters to make the right choice.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports.
Just a few nights ago, Chris Dodd campaign co-chair Joe Keefe was sharing a red pepper pesto pizza with a few good friends, all undecided voters, at 900 Degrees in Manchester.
And....of course....the talk turned to the primary.
5:07 I wasn’t there proselytizing, these are friends.
Keefe says these days his friends, and most people he runs into assess the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses in similar terms.
Hillary Clinton they say is strong but polarizing.
Barack Obama is energizing but inexperienced.
John Edwards is passionate but is running a very different campaign than he did four years ago.
The second tier candidates- Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd are interesting, but voters wonder why they haven’t caught fire.
Keefe says his four friends haven’t made up their minds in part because they haven’t heard enough beyond simple platform positions.
He says, for example, voters know the candidates all believe the nation should wean itself off fossil fuels, but they want to know how that will happen.
Or how the candidate will persuade Congress to pass substantial healthcare overhauls.
23:02 they are still undecided b/c no one has yet to clearly make the case, or close the case they are the candidate able to do that. And I think voters are going to be forced to make up their minds over the last five weeks about who is. And I think voters....are worried they aren’t going to get that, and get more nonsense.
When Keefe says nonsense, he’s referring to the media coverage that he complains is obsessed with who’s up, who’s down, and silly stories about the spats between Obama and Clinton.
Manchester resident Debi Rapson, an undecided voter, also is frustrated by the media coverage.
She says she would have had a much clearer picture of things by now if the media had spent more time talking about issues other than Iraq and healthcare.
She also feels it’s been hard to learn about somebody other than the big three.
12:41 what I really hate about the media....is when there is a debate, we talk to the two or three top candidates. And I find that appalling...and I don’t like that we focus in on one or two issues.
Rapson also thinks candidates and campaigns should take some of the blame.
She has a hard time trusting somebody who’s not going to show a chink in the armor.
:13 I want to hear somebody say ‘yes, no, or maybe, I don’t know.’ I don’t know is a valid answer.
1:58 it’s silly you can’t know the answer to every single question. You can’t know the answer to every single question. And you can’t always make the right decision. That’s why we are human.
Both activists and undecided voters agree people want to back a winner.
Susan Chadwick of Nashua is deciding between Edwards, Clinton and Richardson.
Chadwick admits she’s put herself in the nearly impossible position of trying to guess which of the three can become the next president.
She says she’d like to support Clinton.
6:05 Hillary Clinton has such high negatives...Republicans, people just mention her name and people are ‘oh, I hate Hillary.’ And I don’t even think people know why they “hate Hillary.” But that is such a huge rallying cry to all the right wing conservatives. I am afraid the election would go down if she were the candidate.
She’s leaning to Edwards.
Chadwick says it’s worth sacrificing a bit on positions to get a Democrat back into the White House.
UNH Political Science Professor Dante Scala says if winning is really what’s driving the indecision then what happens in Iowa could greatly affect the outcome here.
He says he’s not surprised that nearly half of likely Democratic voters are still shopping.
Scala says in the last 25 years, there’s amble evidence of Democratic voter volatility.
Gary Hart’s 1984, come out of nowhere victory, or Bill Bradley’s near upset of Al Gore are just two examples.
He thinks right now voters really just want to get a candidate’s vibe.
4:07 what voters are trying to discern now are a lot more intangible things like character, personality, electability, who would make a good president. Those things are a lot more difficult to discern than who has my favorite position on Medicare.
Hillary Clinton state steering committee member Martin Honigberg says not many people are talking about this- but he thinks voters are a bit overwhelmed.
25:29 whenever you have choices even great choices....but as soon as you choose, all of a sudden the one you selected doesn’t look so good. And the one you didn’t select, oh, man look at all the great things about that one.’
For NHPR News, I’m DG.
http://www.nhpr.org/node/14253
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