Chasing the Undecided
The Swing Set
By Eric Pooley
Four years ago, the media were filled with talk of the Soccer
Moms--well-off suburban swing voters who were said to hold the
key to the election. Reality is never quite so simple. There was
more than one undecided demographic group in the country then,
and there's more than one now. Here are five distinct groups
that will decide this election.
The Lunch-Pail Dads
--Middle income ($30,000 to $65,000 a year), white workingmen
without a college degree, married and almost always with children.
Their wives are Waitress (or Secretary) Moms, and they live in
suburbs or small towns near cities. They're doing better than
they were six or eight years ago, but have little savings. Many
voted for Perot in '92 and even in '96, some for Clinton. They
are leaning toward Bush. They respond to candidates who convey
the capacity for leadership. Gore's "fighting for hard-working
families" pitch is aimed their way. So far, it has attracted
many of their wives, not many of them.
The Waitress Moms
--The women who work the spreadsheet at the office, who do the
night shift at the factory and who serve you coffee at 35,000
ft. They live in households with incomes between $15,000 and
$75,000. They like Gore's economic populism--especially on
issues that have got little media attention, like his plan for
IRA-style savings instruments to build wealth. But because
they're parents--married, divorced and unmarried--they carry a
special concern for the moral climate of the country. This,
combined with a distrust of Washington, makes them targets for
Bush and his pitch for a "fresh start." They swung heavily to
Clinton in 1996, when he married values and economics by making
things like the Gingrich-proposed curbs in Medicare spending a
test of values. If Gore too can and combine values and
economics, he'll pull these latter-day Erin Brockoviches into
his camp.
The Wired Workers
--Affluent ($55,000 to $80,000 a year) information workers in
the computer, Internet and communications fields, they have
profited from the new economy and want it to grow. They're up
for grabs. The tech-loving, Palm Pilot-wearing Gore should have
an advantage with them, but his anticorporate message has turned
some of them off. And since many of them use their Web browsers
to buy and sell stock, they like Bush's idea of investing some
of their payroll taxes in the markets. They're pro-choice and
anti-regulation. In the end, they'll vote for the candidate they
deem less likely to screw up the economy.
The Sandwich Generation
--Married couples at all middle-income levels who are caring for
children and aging parents. They want a President who solves
problems and offers a cure for their "prosperity angst." When
they aren't worrying about bad things happening in their
children's schools, they're fretting about their parents'
health-care costs. They like Bush's education record as well as
his plan to use vouchers to rescue children from failing
schools, and his "prosperity with a purpose" pitch has been
hitting home with them too. But when he got lost in the thickets
of tax-cut policy, they started leaning toward Gore, who
promises to give their parents a prescription-drug benefit and
pour money into their kids' schools.
The Forgotten Workers
--Older than the Lunch-Pail Dads--over-50, white workingmen
without a college degree. They feel left out of the economic
boom and threatened by G.O.P. plans to privatize Social
Security. They started out in Bush's camp, but many are tilting
to Gore, drawn by his people-vs.-the-powerful pitch and worried
that Bush's tax cut could put the economy off kilter just as
they have begun to dream of retirement. Bush could win them back
if he convinces them he is an equally responsible caretaker of
the economy. --By Eric Pooley. With reporting by Matthew Cooper
and Karen Tumulty
|