Amen brother.

Sir, your disdain for the undedcided voter is palpable. These are important issues to be sure, but many voters are overworked, struggling to stay afloat financially to support and feed themselves and their families. They lack the time and often the resources to explore these issues in depth.

Notwithstanding, I agree that the realtime perceptions have the influence to sway opinions, as you so persuasively argued. But two things:

First, the undecided voters making these ratings are providing their real perceptions, not the products of some experimental manipulation. So what's wrong with having some exposure to how genuinely uncertain voters are seeing the debates, assuming they aren't misrepresenting themselves in order to sway the perceptions of others?

Second, in most cases, the post-debate spin goes both ways. So the bias is, in theory, mitigated.

If the networks do try to stack the deck, either in their selection of "undecideds" or in their post-debate coverage, shame on them. If discovered, the social, economic, and perhaps legal consequences would be quite severe.

When I get junk mail, I throw it out. When I see something on TV that I don't like, I switch the channel or turn it off. I suggest that you do the same.

Rather than limiting the spin (which we can never do) we should be working to educate people about the issues, and innoculate them to the illegitimate persuasive techniques that are rampant among the spin doctors and in the media in general.

Thankfully, your column takes a big step in that direction. Well-done!