Opinion: Crucial swing voters for McCain and Obama explained, sort of

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As everyone who’s ever followed presidential politics knows, this is about the time of each autumnal general election campaign when the media, bored with the running horserace story, starts looking for obscure nooks and crannies to explore.

One of the all-time favorites is the ‘swing voters,’ those unidentified people who are presumably uncommitted but can allegedly swing the election one way or the other by their late decisionmaking. The beauty for media people of talking about these faceless swing voters is that once everyone who’s going to vote actually votes, there are by definition no more swing voters.

So who can contradict a stupid media report read four weeks before the election and already long-forgotten? It’s the perfect waste of time, leaving no evidence to trace back.

So ‘The Daily Show’ has examined this presently powerful political group.

--Andrew Malcolm

Here’s the report:

With an appreciative hat tip to our pal James Oliphant over at the Swamp.