Rick Perlstein is out with another interesting piece in the American Prospect today, this time about “undecided voters.” He references the great Chris Hayes piece from 2004 that I’ve often discussed over the years. It had the same effect on me that it had on Perlstein who describes it as “the most important piece of political journalism I have ever encountered.” As he says: The future MSNBC host’s TNR piece was an account of the lessons he learned canvassing among undecided voters in Wisconsin for John Kerry. It incinerates a basic foundation of how political junkies think: “Perhaps the greatest myth about undecided voters is that they are undecided because of the ‘issues.’ That is, while they might favor Kerry on the economy, they favor Bush on terrorism; or while they are anti-gay marriage, they also support social welfare programs.” Chris noted that while there were a few people he talked to like that, “such cases were exceedingly rare. More often than not, when I asked undecided voters what issues they would pay attention to as they made up their minds I was met with a blank stare, as if I’d just asked them to name their favorite prime number … the very concept of the ‘issue’ seemed to be almost completely alien to most of the undecided voters I spoke to.” You would think others among the veritable armadas of mainstream journalists reporting out what undecided voters think would have met with such blank stares themselves. It is a…