Archive for September 2008
A unique project
By ELIZABETH LUCAS, REGAN McTARSNEY and MANEEZA IQBAL
A group of Columbia Missourian reporters has been working hard over the past several weeks to find some undecided voters. We thought it would be interesting to follow them through the final frenetic days of the presidential campaign to learn a little about how they’ll decide to cast their ballots.
Where do they get their information? Newspapers? TV? Radio? The Internet? Friends?
Do they listen more to debates or to political commercials?
What issues are important to them? And what traits do they seek in a candidate?
It was difficult, we learned, to find undecided voters — especially those willing to allow us to take a peek into their information habits and political leanings, and willing to be interviewed, to blog and to reflect throughout the campaign.
We’ve recruited an intriguing group.
Miguel
Keith
Amy
There’s Miguel Lopez, an Argentinian who was politically active in his native land but now is preparing to cast his first ballot as an American citizen. There’s Keith Clark, a former boxer who came to Columbia from New York. He’s didn’t pay much attention to politics until he started raising a family, and he’ll be voting for the first time in a presidential election. And then there’s Amy Davis, an MU student who also will be casting her first ballot. She’s torn between the candidates and feels her friends are pulling her one way and her family the other.
The Missourian will be checking up on Miguel, Keith and Amy regularly over the next few weeks, and we hope they’ll use this blog to share their reflections and their experiences as they go about deciding who will get their vote. In return, we hope you’ll weigh in with your own observations. Together, we can create a great conversation.
Meanwhile, you can read more about our voters in this Missourian story. And to hear them describe their circumstances and opinions in their own words, click on the audio files below.
