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Carlton S.'s avatar

What is “unfortunate” is not the difficulty that the campaigns are having in “selling” their candidates to voters, but rather the extreme positions and character defects of their candidates. For all of the whining that Republicans do about taxes and high prices, and all the whining that Democrats do about “inequality,” and the “need” for all sorts of more government programs, think of what else might be accomplished with the billions wasted on political advertising (and commercial advertising too).

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Augustus P. Lowell's avatar

Although it is not true this year, I am often among the ranks of the "undecided voter" at this stage of an election (and, sometimes, right up to election day). I am, perhaps (in fact, likely) an outlier but I don't fit the demographic that either you or the campaigns hypothesize; and my reasoning is probably something that you might expect but that neither of the campaigns would (and certainly not what the campaigns desire).

This year, I will certainly vote for Harris/Walz. Or, perhaps not. It depends on how tight the race is in my state (NH) when we get to election day. I want to make sure that Trump doesn't win. But, if it is clear that Harris/Walz will prevail here despite whatever I may do, then I will cast a protest vote for some candidate that isn't from one of the two major parties.

Because, when it comes down to it, a vote for Harris/Walz will feel like voting for the one who will kill me more slowly -- or, in Charlie Sykes' formulation, like voting for the Cancer in order to avoid the Heart Attack.

I could comfortably have voted for a centrist Democrat (or a centrist Republican). I am loathe to cast a vote that encourages the progressive left (or the regressive right) in thinking that they have a mandate to remake the country in their image. Alas, that is how either side will interpret victory by even the smallest of margins. Both sides seem to think we are electing a King, not a President...

I have written a couple of times in the past about the plight of the undecided voter, as letters to the editor and in response to editorialists who have heaped scorn upon us as if we were imbeciles rather than in despair.

from November 2000

Recent letters and columns have treated undecided voters as pariahs, either too stupid or too lazy to figure out what they want or what the country needs. The letters and columns are not only disrespectful, they are wrong. Undecided voters know what they want and what the country needs; they just can’t find it in any of the candidates. They are not holding out waiting for gotchas or flourishes. They are not even waiting for a white knight to ride in and save the day. They are merely putting off an unpleasant chore, hoping against hope that one of the candidates will finally make a mistake and give them some clue as to which version of the truth about themselves and about their parties they actually believe.

And is that so bad? If everyone declared themselves “undecided” right up until election day, the candidates would be forced to keep talking to them instead of writing them off as either a “safe vote” or a “lost cause”.

from October 2012

For quite some time I have been enduring, without comment, the disdain, and downright vitriol, being heaped upon undecided voters. But your editorial cartoon today, depicting such voters as diners in a restaurant who have overstayed their welcome while the staff just wants to go home, was simply too far over the top to let it pass.

For the record: If I have to choose between shooting myself in the head or in the heart, can I be blamed for wanting to put off the pain for as long as possible?

But that aside, the election hasn’t been held yet! The fact that the 6-year-olds of the press can’t contain their curiosity doesn’t give them a right to my opinion or a right to force my choice!

If I was standing in the voting booth at 9 pm on election day holding up the counting, they would have a good reason to complain and I would deserve their scorn. But complaining now, in the middle of the evening rush, that I haven’t yet bothered to place my order is just childish petulance. Hey, you in the media! I don’t really care how tired you are. It’s not time to go home yet!

-apl

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