The Uncommitted Voters

In a presidential campaign that polls are calling a dead heat, the vice presidential debate may have taken on unusual significance. A reported 43.5 million people watched the debate.

But the audience the candidates really cared about was much smaller. As Correspondent Anthony Mason reports, they're the uncommitted voters. And Gene Faber is one of them.

"I'll probably be undecided until I go 'Squish' with the voting instrument," says Faber, one of nearly 200 uncommitted voters CBS News surveyed last night, as they watched the vice presidential debate –- and recorded their approval or disapproval on a sliding scale.

"They [Swing voters] are people who the campaigns we assume are trying most to reach in every presentation by a candidate," says Kathy Frankovic, director of surveys for CBS News.

The most striking story last night was the disparity between men and women. Democrat John Edwards routinely rated higher with women, beginning when he talked about Iraq: "It's not just me that sees the mess in Iraq. There are Republican leaders like John McCain, like Richard Lugar, like Chuck Hagel, who've said Iraq is a mess and it's getting worse."

Vice President Dick Cheney rated much lower on that same issue: "The point of success in Iraq will be reached when we have turned governance over to the Iraqi people."

Cheney's marks improved with both sexes when he talked about tax cuts: "The president and I will go forward and make the tax cuts permanent. That's good policy …"

But Edwards scored even higher: "We wanna keep the tax cuts that are in place for those who make less than 200,000 a year. And give additional tax cuts for those middle class families."

The vice president's experience, however, registered with our sample of voters. They gave him high marks for leadership, but saw Edwards as presidential, too.

"When it came to the question of whether each of these candidates could be an effective president if necessary, there was no difference in the way these voters evaluated each of these men," says Frankovic.

But Frankovic says they liked Edwards more. "[They said] 'John Edwards thinks more like me. Shares my priorities and I do like him more.' ... It was almost two to one, Edwards. Eight out of 10 voters said that he shared their priorities. That number was only four out of 10 for Dick Cheney."

At the end of the debate, these fence-sitting voters were asked to pick a winner. Within minutes, the results came in to CBS News. With a 6 percent margin of error, more than 40 percent chose Edwards -- 28 percent picked Cheney.

But nearly a third were like Faber. "I think it's a draw," he says. "It's sort of like Rice Krispies vs. Corn Flakes."

Historically, vice presidential candidates have at best a small impact on the race. But in one respect, they may be important. They do tell voters something about the person who picked them.