After the Republican Convention in Tampa, the PBS Newshour interviewed a group of undecided voters. These voters represented a cross section of the electorate: men and women, young and old, and registered Republicans, Democrats and independents. To a person, each undecided voter was still undecided after listening to and discussing the convention speeches.

The PBS Newshour interviewed the same group of undecided voters after the Democratic Convention, and all were still undecided.

How do you convince the undecided to make a choice? First, you have to understand the source of indecision. In the case of the PBS group of undecided voters it seemed to me that the source of indecision was perfectionism. Each voter indicated that they liked certain things about each candidate, but not everything. It sounded like in order to make a decision, these voters needed the candidates to be perfect (to them).

If perfectionism is the problem, campaigns will need to convince voters that NO candidate is perfect and that perfectionism should not be a goal for voters. Campaigns will also have to set out which things matter the most and convince voters that those issues are the ones to look at--even at the expense of everything else.

Of course, this is easier said than done.

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