"Elasticity" of Voter opinion

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Well, I was just watching a pannel discussion with David Gregory, Tom Brokaw, and a few other journalists (I think it was Meet the Press, even though there weren't any politicians on it). The various pannelists went through various polls showing "what Indepedents thought" or the "shift in Indepdents opinions of Obama" and some commentary on "Obama needing to improve relations with the business community". And I couldn't help but think "WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE ASSUMING THAT INDEPDENTS HAVE RATHER SOLID BELIEFS?"!

It seemed that these pannelists were basing all their opinons on some discredited Median Voter Theory. Almost nobody seemed to discuss how "elastic" or changeable the opinions of the much touted American Indepedent Voters were. I would have loved to see opinions of voters rated a a "agree-disagree" spectrum - perhaps ranging from 1 to 7 - so we could get a better measure of how persuadable voters are in the upcomming elections (which I think will lead to a strong Republican Majority in the House, but not a Supermajority, and a razor thin Republican takeover of the Senate).

So much "political analysis" in the US seems to be on the basis that the electorate has fixed beliefs and what politicians must do is approach the "median" of the fixed beliefs of the masses. This is inaccurate.

The only person who I think had any insight on that pannel was Brokaw - who noted, among discussions of Obama being a one term president, that Reagan was more unpopular in this phase of his presidency and got re-elected & that the Democrats lost the midterms under Clinton, yet Clinton was re-elected.

Some independents choose to avoid affiliation with either party but are otherwise engaged (I'm independent, but my liberal views tend to bring me closer to the Democratic Party than the Republican Party almost always), but many independents are really just not very engaged and underinformed. When election season comes around, they tend to rely on impressions from political ads (and we all know how horrible those are), the opinions of those around them, or even more superficial aspects (a politician's looks, charisma or likability, etc.). If they have political opinions, they are most likely to based on whatever the opinion of their community is and immediate self-interest (e.g., paying less in taxes, support for things that benefit the industry they work in).