Crikey

Ministering to undecided voters is a tough gig, writes Angela Valdez in Salon. Valdez made 100 calls on behalf of John McCain to supposedly ‘persuadable’ voters, but found few willing to listen.

“I am not a McCain supporter. I am a freelance journalist. But in the next to last week of the campaign I took the McCain campaign up on its challenge to “reach out to voters.” I called 100 allegedly “persuadable” voters from my home phone, and made a good-faith effort to follow the rules they provided. I stuck to the script, hewing to the words on my screen at all times, no matter what happened. I did not try to impersonate a true believer; neither was I a saboteur.

“With the opening of voting just hours away, many Republicans claim, and Democrats worry, that this election season the “undecided” percentage in various polls hides a wealth of McCain support. What I learned was that cold calling strangers is a frustrating business, and that “undecided” does not necessarily mean what Republicans or Democrats think it does.”

Read the full story here.