It's so hard for me to understand how there can be voters who still haven't made up their minds that I keep coming back to it again and again. This election is a clear choice between a conservative and a liberal; whoever wins could appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices, as well as hundreds of political appointees who will run every government agency for the next four years. Rumsfeld and Ashcroft are just the tip of the iceberg. Appointees will run everything from the parks department to the department of defense, the EPA, the labor department, the education department, housing, health and human services, and on and on. In all departments, political appointees will set and enforce policy. Along with the departments are multitudes of agencies, which will also be run by political appointees.
This suggests that undecided voters have no opinions regarding any policy area, whether it be taxation, abortion, drilling for oil in Alaska, or the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, that is more important to them than some quality they are looking for in a candidate.
Pundits say voters choose the candidate who they won't mind having in their livingroom for the next four years; the candidate with the personality they feel most comfortable with. Can voters really be willing to toss all considerations of policy aside in favor of the guy they'd most like to have a beer with?
I have a different theory. I think that for some undecided voters, what they want more than anything else is to vote for "a winner." They want to find themselves on the winning team on the morning after the election. To make the wrong choice is to become a loser by proxy. I think these voters enter the booth trying to guess who is going to win, and cast their vote for that candidate.