Ana Marie Cox/Swampland: “The McBamas” - how many independents are undecided between McCain and Obama?
Ana Marie Cox, a/k/a the Wonkette, includes the following excerpt on Swampland - “McBamas”. It is part of a larger article she wrote for the Time site, which is also worth a read - more on “McBamas”.
The importance of independent or “undeclared” voters in the New Hampshire primary is an article of faith among both pundits and politicos. Yet the existence of voters who are actually making the choice between these two politically divergent figures has taken observers and both campaigns somewhat by surprise.
University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala estimates these “McBamas” make up only 3% of the electorate. As rare as unicorns, perhaps, but just as fascinating, and potentially significant. While an Obama adviser described those split between the two as “a small sliver of the universe,” the campaign is paying attention to it, as “everybody is very conscious of what happened to Bill Bradley in 2000″ — when independents abandoned the moderate Democrat and helped give McCain a victory.
I think that AMC makes a point which I have not heard any other analysts make - namely, that the actual number of these purple, independent voters, in absolute terms, isn’t that great.
Which makes a lot of sense. The overall participation rate, even in the early states, is low (as measured in terms of eligible voters). Democrats are more likely to vote in a Democratic primary or caucus, and likewise for Republicans. There is, obviously, a huge section of voters in the general election who could swing to one party or the other. But among the universe of primary/caucus voters, there are relatively few of them.
At the same time, AMC sums it up well - there may not be a lot of them in absolute terms, but there are enough to swing what will certainly be a close contest on the GOP side (it looks less so now, on the Democratic one.)
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