I had a Facebook status recently that said "Shannon Albert doesn't like undecided voters" or something like that. These last few weeks of the presidential campaign are all about throwing millions of dollars at undecided voters to try to sway them one way or the other. I propose we stop caring about them if they can't make up their minds without millions of dollars of ads being run on their TV. Undecided voters say things like "but the candidates are so much alike" or "it's like choosing the lesser of two evils." No, it's not. We have two good men to choose from who are very different from each other. Make a choice. Or don't. But let's not waste time and money on people who maybe shouldn't be voting in the first place.
David Sedaris (a favorite author of mine and one of the only authors whose books I'm compelled to buy as soon as they come out) recently wrote an article about undecided voters for The New Yorker. An excerpt:
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
Update: Just after I posted this, I read an article about some possible reasons people might be undecided. Yeah,
these seem about right. :)