“Don’t Rush Me.” That’s the real slogan for Campaign 2000. This election, we’ve been told, will turn on about 10 percent of the electorate in about 10 battleground states among people who haven’t yet made up their minds how to vote tomorrow…people who can’t quite bring themselves to say either President Bush or President Gore. The undecided voter has also become a kind of parody. Every time you turn on the TV or the radio or open the newspaper there they are – the supercitizens — the dreaded average American who’s migrated from “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” into serious news time.
They’re the wafflers, the leaners, maybe ultimately the uninformed. Or are the uncommitteds the most engaged and passionate of anyone this election season? The Ralph Naderites, for example, people torn between voting for what they believe in or voting against what they fear most? The Great Swing Vote of 2000 is this hour on the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Century Foundation and co-author of “Why the White Working Class Still Matters”
Mickey Kaus, Slate columnist
John Nichols of the Capital Times in Madison Wisconsin
and Walter Dean Burnham, author and chair of the Department of Government at the Liberal Arts College at the University of Texas at Austin.