Bill Maher, 9/21/2012 (my transcript)
New rule —if you’re one of the 5% of American voters who are still undecided on who to vote for, it’s okay to admit you just don’t give a sh**. Really, if at this point you still can’t figure out who you like more, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama — stay home, because you probably couldn’t find your polling place anyway. I mean, what more information does someone need to make this choice? Obama has been president for nearly four years, and Mitt Romney has been running for president since 1971, when his space egg incubated, and he burst out of an astronaut’s chest.
And they’re really not that much alike. If you can’t tell this man, from this man, you’re not a swing voter. You’re a lesbian. It’s okay that there’s a tiny fraction of uncommitted voters in a few swing states who will decide this election, but can we all please stop treating them like they’re somehow more noble and discerning than the rest of us?
For example, you know who’s an ‘undecided’ voter?” The Octomom. Yup, somebody asked her, and well, turns out she doesn’t even know who Mitt Romney is.
And that, in a nutshell, is America’s celebrated undecided voter. Put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think tank, searching out every last bit of information high-minded arbiters poring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please, they mostly fall into a category political scientists call ‘low information voters,’ otherwise known as ‘dipsh**s.’
For example, according to a PEW research study, 40% of Democrats do not know that the Republicans are the Conservative Party. Let me repeat that. No, I'm not going to repeat that - it's too depressing.
Instead, let's look at someone else who announced this week that they were an 'undecided voter.' Kim Kardashian. Yes, she described herself as a 'Liberal Republican.' Of course there aren't any of those anymore, but pieces of knowledge like that don't reach the low-information voter. But Donald Trump does. He tweeted: "Hey, Kim Kardashian. I hear you're undecided and I can explain why you should vote for Mitt Romney."
Hey @kimkardashian--I hear you are undecided in the election. I can explain why you should vote for @mittromney.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2012
Well, this is a microcosm of the whole election. Because the only way Romney can erase Obama's lead is know-nothings like Donald Trump can convince know-nothings like Kim Kardashian that Republican-style trickle-down economics won't wreck the economy the way it has before. And he might do it because Kim Kardashian thinks 'trickle-down' means the last shot of your sex tape.
And the worst part of this is that America's entire electoral process - the debates, the convention, the ads, the photo-ops with the corndogs - it's all targeted at this tiny section of the population that's just not that interested. Which would make them by definition the least-qualified for this decider's role. When are low-information wishy-washy people ever desirable to talk to? There's a reason why when you have a problem you never seek their advice. 'Hey, you know who you should talk to 'bout that thing you're going through? Someone who doesn't know anything about it!'
This year at the debates we should skip that thing where the undecideds dial in their reactions to every little moment, and instead hook up the dial to their foreheads to see if there’s any measurable brain activity. I don’t need to see another focus group with these nincompoops — I’ve seen enough of them to know why they’re called focus groups — because they’re groups of people who have trouble focusing — and if I want to see a bunch of ignorant jackasses bullsh***ing about the election, I’ll watch Fox and Friends.
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