That changes everything. I can now understand the undecided voter: Cthulhu has arguably the most effective financial recovery platform, but it involves eating people and eventually destroying life as we know it.

Tricky. I’ll have to give this some thought.

That must be why you told that pollster you’d vote for Chtulhu. You knew if you didn’t I’d eat you in your sleep.

Tim, I fully agree with every one of your points. I’m sure that’s part of what’s going on here. But not all. I didn’t say it in my article, but one of my targets was the people that publicly say they’re unconfirmed. For example:

1) (Contrasting David’s experience), I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and they interviewed an undecided voter who was still agonizing over the various pros and cons from each candidate.

2) I remember watching the second Obama / McCain debate, and whatever news channel I was watching it on interviewed a group of college students afterwards. They’d gotten a good mix of people for each candidate, including some who were undecided.

I can understand the privacy aspect, and would believe that bites a chunk out of the 8% unconfirmed group. I can understand needing time to make a decision, but not this long. I can’t understand being this far down the political process, with everything we know about the candidates and their policies, and still not having made a decision.

Perhaps this is my admission of a lack of understanding of human nature. Good thing I never went into politics.

Andy

Examining the 2004 election, Clymer and Winneg found that even the most hard-core of undecided voters were fairly predictable.

They asked the 4% of their sample that claimed to be undecided to rate the two candidates in early October. When they went back to the same people after the election, more than 80% had in fact voted for whichever candidate they’d rated most highly a month earlier.

-Some are people who dislike pollsters, and answer “undecided” because there is no option given for “none of your business”

-Some may be people who plan to vote oppositely to, say, their spouse, who is sitting right there in the room while the pollster is calling, and they don’t want to come right out and say it at that point.

-Some may be going through the procedure outlined above, and have just found out some information that is making them change their mind about who they are supporting. It takes time to get one’s mind around switching from supporting one person, to supporting the other, and so they could legitimately be called “undecided” at that point.

-And finally, a significant number of people have convinced themselves that all the candidates are equally bad, that no matter who they vote for it will be a wrong choice, and they’ve essentially thrown up their hands and declared that they don’t care which one wins.

So I guess I will let you in on the mind of one undecided voter.

I am much like you, in that I am extremely libertarian. I want free markets combined with personal choice and responsibility. In my opinion, the role of government should be to ensure the rights of it’s citizens (life, liberty & pursuit of happiness) and provide infrastructure that private enterprise is not able to create. That’s it.

Neither Senator McCain or Obama provide anything more than lip service to what my idea of government should be. Senator McCain supports keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, doesn’t have any idea how the economy works and his general temperament does not fit my picture of an ideal President. He also seems to think that he can spend more on Defense spending without raising taxes, in the midst of an economic crisis that is causing tax revenue to go down.

Senator Obama on the other hand aligns more closely to me as far as foreign policy is concerned. But his domestic and economic policies are terrifying. More taxes, more welfare ( http://www.wsj.com/article/SB121910303529751345.html?mod=most_emailed_day ), windfall profit taxes on oil companies for making money etc. Most worrisome to me is that as the economy has melted, he has begun hating on free trade ( http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/05/26/080526ta_talk_surowiecki ).

I obviously understand that no candidate will ever agree with me on 100% of the issues, and I don’t expect them to. But I would like is a candidate that promises to do his best to balance the federal budget, as that is going to require a massive reduction in unnecessary federal services or massive tax hikes (political suicide). Federal debt is over 10 trillion dollars… I would love to see this paid down over my lifetime.

The number one issue for me is our economy, as it is the basis of American power. I want a President who truly understands economics and who surrounds himself with economists and advisors who do as well. Ron Paul knows more about economics than anyone else I know of, but unfortunately he is no longer running. Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin, but I have a tough time voting for anyone who makes faith in god such a large portion of their platform.

I guess I am down to either McCain or Bob Barr at this point, but whoever I end up voting for I won’t have a smile on my face when I do it : (