When we canvassed in Indiana, Bridget, Ilsa, and Penny surmised that the folks who said they were undecided had a preference, but didn't want to share it. Ezra Klein cites some studies supporting that supposition.
Fascinating stuff, and very consistent with other evidence from the social sciences. E.g., there's really good evidence that when we think we're leaning toward a particular decision but haven't made up our minds yet, we actually HAVE made up our minds -- what feels to us like a 60% chance of choosing option A turns out in practice to be something like a 90% chance of going with A.
Reminds me of the guy from the mill in Indiana that Ilsa and I chatted with. He said he hadn't made up his mind yet but all of his comments about McCain were negative and all of his comments about Obama were positive. I don't doubt that he believes he's undecided, but I'm pretty sure he's going to land in our camp.
That's why I like the numbers underneath the new poll results--all of the factors that are weighing in people's decisions tilt strongly in Obama's direction, so even those pesky undecideds are likely, I think, to break hard in the right direction.
2 comments:
Fascinating stuff, and very consistent with other evidence from the social sciences. E.g., there's really good evidence that when we think we're leaning toward a particular decision but haven't made up our minds yet, we actually HAVE made up our minds -- what feels to us like a 60% chance of choosing option A turns out in practice to be something like a 90% chance of going with A.
Reminds me of the guy from the mill in Indiana that Ilsa and I chatted with. He said he hadn't made up his mind yet but all of his comments about McCain were negative and all of his comments about Obama were positive. I don't doubt that he believes he's undecided, but I'm pretty sure he's going to land in our camp.
That's why I like the numbers underneath the new poll results--all of the factors that are weighing in people's decisions tilt strongly in Obama's direction, so even those pesky undecideds are likely, I think, to break hard in the right direction.
How cool is this??
very cool. and very smart. like all of sassy's friends.
Post a Comment