[A]s I've previously noted, independent voters are not "centrist" or "moderate" in an ideological sense. Independents are actually "low-information" voters whose political ideas are an ill-informed hodge-podge that conforms to no ideological template. There is no coherent middle-of-the-road agenda to which they subscribe.The moderate argument that Republicans lose independents because of specific conservative policy stances -- on immigration, abortion, gay rights, etc. -- simply does not fit the reality of who these voters are. (And there is plenty of evidence that independents tend to be conservative on social issues.)Low-information voters often can't name their representatives or senators, but they usually know who the president is and which party he belongs to, and if they don't like the president (Bush is at 26% approval), his party will pay the price. The Republican Party's electoral problems, then, are more simple than some would have us believe. The simplicity of the problem doesn't mean the solution will be easy, but "moderation" -- chasing a centrist will-o'-th'-wisp -- is unlikely to be part of the solution.
These supposedly "moderate" voters are, as RSM points out, just "low information" voters. I've met these people all over the place. They don't really follow politics. They are socially conservative. That's why they vote against things like gay marriage. Ironically, one of the best summations of how these socially conservative low information swing voters vote was made by Chris Matthews in an old interview where he was asked about the Reagan Democrats. He said that in times of economic hardship these voters typically vote Democrat because they fear that they will be the next one out of a job and they will then need big government's help. In times of economic prosperity, they vote Republican because they see themselves as being the next one to get rich in an entrepreneurial boom. Reagan surprised this dynamic by convincing these voters in a time of great economic turmoil that it was in their best interests to vote for him instead of the big government liberal Carter.
My point in writing this is that "swing voters" are not turned off by the sorts of things the MSM tell us they don't like. They weren't turned off by Palin. They were turned off by the economic meltdown and McCain's inability to articulate a clear position on it. We should also not overlook the fact that these low information voters were inundated by ads from Obama because Obama had a $600 million campaign war chest compared to McCain's $90 million. McCain couldn't counter Obama's ad blitz, and so Obama was able to speak to these low info voters without any McCain follow up.
Oops. The beginning of my post was cut off. I meant to write that Robert Stacy McCain at the American Spectator made a great argument about these so called moderate swing voters.