[ back ]
There's no excuse for undecided
(by Barbara Christian - October 29, 2008)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
There's no excuse for undecided
Here we are less than one week away from the most historic presidential election in 40 years, and there still are some people out there who can't decide who to vote for. They are termed the "undecided."
Do they lack opinions, a moral code, their own true north by which to gauge the eight candidates running this year?
What gets me is these undecided voters seem proud of who they are, and some will even tell you they won't know which candidate they will pick until they get into the voting booth.
What? Do they not have access to radio, television, the Internet? Did they miss all four debates, numerous candidate interviews and all those skits on Saturday Night Live?
One Sunday-morning television pundit said recently that undecided voters are really exhibitionists who like the attention -- being courted by the media and pollsters. So, the longer they hold out, the longer they can stretch their 15 minutes in the spotlight. That may be too cynical.
Who are the undecided? They are all around us every day, regardless of whether there is an election or not. You know them. These are the people who spend hours in the paint store trying pick a color for the family room and who call their spouses from the grocery store using cell minutes to ask if they want beans or peas for dinner. These are the same people who unnerve the careful driver by changing lanes of traffic on the highway and checkout lines Heinen's.
The undecided are really rebelling adults who, as children, were given too many choices. Saxophone or flute? Soccer or football? Debate or drama? Or maybe they didn't have to decide for themselves, which makes decision making now all the harder for them now.
It's frightening to think that, at this writing, 4 percent of undecided voters could make the difference in a close election. These undecided, with their lack of convictions, are the same voters who left hanging, stippled and pregnant chads in the 2000 Florida balloting. You see, even after getting into the voting booth, they wavered so that they could not make a decent punch with the stylus.
Now, here they are again possibly influencing the election. It's not right. So how will this important group of citizens finally decide who to favor with their vote this year? They may just close their eyes and punch, pull or screen tap their history-making votes.
Or perhaps they will flip a coin. Barack Obama, heads; John McCain, tails. Maybe they will choose based on the name on the last bumper sticker or yard sign they saw on the way to their polling place.
There should be a law about voters being undecided the day of the election. I am not sure how it could be enforced (we ended Jim Crow years ago), but it would penalize the clueless, conflicted and the politically paralyzed. Embarrassment might work.
Can't you hear the public-address system now? "Attention, person in station 2, precinct B. Pick a president or step slowly away from the voting booth."
[ back ]
