Democrats Alot more Undecided that Polls Represent

[illinoisprogressive]

As the Barack Obama campaign canvassed door-to-door this past weekend in scores of communities across the country, a snapshot of a campaign fueled by an unique mix of a non-confrontational style, a message of hope and sometimes unwitting amateurishness emerges.

This mid-fall freeze-frame also paints a picture of a Democratic electorate significantly more ambivalent and undecided than recent polls indicated and perhaps less motivated by the war in Iraq and more by domestic issues than previously suggested.

The portrait of the Obama campaign operating at ground level among national Democratic voters is a product of a new type of citizen journalism. In an unprecedented effort of campaign reporting, nearly two dozen Off The Bus correspondents monitored Obama Canvass for Change events in fourteen cities in nine crucial states during the past 48 hours and contributed to this report from venues as disparate as Keene, NH, Des Moines and Dubuque, and Minneapolis; Studio City, Corte Madera, Berkeley, Sacramento, Koreatown - Los Angeles, and Altadena, CA; from Boise, Brooklyn and Ballard; from Manhattan, KS, Memphis and Charlotte, NC. (To see all of our campaign monitor reports click here.)

Despite neighborhood and regional differences, and although the levels of sophistication and competency among the individual campaign events varied, our correspondents found several common themes, the most striking of which is to what degree Democrats still declare themselves undecided.

It's abundantly clear that, less than four months before the onslaught of decisive primaries and caucuses, many Democratic voters have just not made up their minds. "Of those that would speak to us, almost all were undecided," reports correspondent Phoebe Love who followed the Obama canvass through Ballard, Washington. She is echoed by contributor Ethan Hova in Studio City, a middle-class Democratic suburban stronghold in Los Angeles: "The vast majority of voters were very much undecided and expressed reluctance to engage in debate without conducting research on their own." Daniel Macht, following the Obama campaign in Brooklyn, New York noted the same hesitation: "They were all undecided, save one Edwards supporter." Perhaps most importantly, correspondent Beverly Davis reports from Des Moines, "Smith < an Obama volunteer> knocks on Dan Arply's door and launches into his opening rap but Arply soon interrupts by saying, 'Thanks for stopping by, but I haven't decided on supporting anyone yet.' Arply is a typical Iowan."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/reporting-the-obama-campa_b_68440.html#postComment

[Colobo]

1. What we are doing tonight in terms of fundraising

is what the polls are not showing. It's called the power of the people.