I think there are two kinds of Undecideds.

On the one hand there are the passive, tuned-out, unengaged louts who have no clue about what's going on. These are the Inert Undecideds.

On the other hand there are those who are very disturbed by Bush, but who for any number of reasons cannot bring themselves to embrace Kerry. These are the Dynamic Undecideds. They include mainline conservatives, conservative Catholics accustomed to obeying the Church, and a large number of people who have swallowed the whole Right Wing message about Kerry's supposed lack of principles, Vietnam turncoatism, Swiftie lies, etc. It is these Dynamic Undecideds who are responsible for the high "Want somebody other than Bush" and "Country on the wrong course" numbers that do not match the Bush v. Kerry numbers.

Of course these two groups do not form a simple dichotomy but lie at opposite ends of a continuum. Nevertheless, the ideal approaches to each of these two groups are very different, with the passive Inerts presumably requiring simple motivation and education to get them to the polls and voting for their own interests, while the Dynamic types are a tougher nut to crack. I think we need to develop a typology for them and a quick "diagnostic" approach so we can quickly identify and neutralize the specific issues that are holding them back from a Kerry vote.

Self-promoting :kick:

I think the Inerts require more than motiviation. Everyone knows an Inert.. and if they're a complete noob, they require info in small bites. also you have to be careful not to come across as a nutball and start talking about the PNAC right off the bat. I have a noob coworker and I started with, "Kerry is the Democrat, Bush is the Republican."

Re: Dynamic Undecideds -- come in all flavors.

IMO (I've said it before, I'll say it again), the new George Lakoff book, "Don't think of an elephant" is THE BEST TOOL for dialogs with undecideds.

Democrats are FAR TOO FOND of arguing issues. Lakoff says, when the facts don't fit the frames, the frame is kept and the facts are thrown away. In each debate, we need to REFRAME and REPOSITION, not argue issues. Lakoff is great for many many examples of this.