Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Jill Porter: What if undecideds can't decide?

MICHAEL GINSBERG has followed the Democratic primary religiously and has obsessed about who's going to get his vote. To no avail.

MICHAEL GINSBERG has followed the Democratic primary religiously and has obsessed about who's going to get his vote.

To no avail.

With only a few days before the dreaded choice confronts him on Election Day, Ginsberg is considering these solutions:

* Taking his eight-year-old daughter, Maddie, into the voting booth with him and letting her pick.

* Hiding two pieces of matzo instead of one during the Passover seder ritual in which children find it and get a reward. Each piece would represent a candidate, and he'd vote for the one that was found first.

* Setting out two portions of food for his two cats, labeling the portions "Clinton" and "Obama," and voting for whichever food gets eaten first.

This, from a manager with an executive-search firm whose job it is to pick candidates for corporate leadership.

It's that bad.

"I know it's never going to come down to one of them won or lost by one vote and it was Mike's fault," he said.

Still, "It's killing me."

Committed voters on either side clearly can't fathom this crippling uncertainty. They're convinced their candidate is the only valid choice, and supporters of their opponent are deeply misguided.

But many others are still vacillating from one to the other in a vicious circle that seems irresolvable. Some polls last week showed more than one voter in 10 is still undecided.

God knows it isn't for want of information.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have exhaustively explained their similar positions on issues.

They've been in so many debates that the only revelation now is how snarky and inane the questions can be, which was pitifully evident this week.

They've both pandered, pledged and promised; they've both said things that they had to take back.

Still, for some people, Clinton's strengths are Obama's weaknesses and vice versa, and they cancel each other out.

In our editorial board meetings, for instance, Clinton was impressively prepared and specific, if guarded and defensive. Obama was charming and persuasive, if vague and long-winded.

As Ginsberg put it:

"My mind says Hillary, my heart says Obama."

But one of those impulses has to prevail on Election Day - and it's likely to be the heart.

When undecided Democrats get into the voting booth, they'll no doubt have a "Blink" moment, memorialized in Malcolm Gladwell's book by that name, when their instinct overcomes their intellect and directs them to the right button.

"A lot of it is gut reaction," said St. Joseph's University assistant professor Natalie Wood.

"They check a box and just leave and try not to think about it anymore. They don't stand there deliberating," said Wood, assistant director of the Center for Consumer Research.

Age may be a determining factor in that gut reaction.

"The older we get, the more set in our ways we become," she said.

"For some of these voters it may be a case of 'better the devil you know than the devil you

don't.' Younger voters are maybe more likely to take risks with someone new."

But other considerations may take precedence over age.

A lawyer with a relationship with the Clintons says he may vote for front-runner Obama just to put an end to the gut-wrenching campaign. He didn't want to be identified, for obvious reasons.

John Reddish, of Chadds Ford, says it will depend on how he feels on Election Day.

"If on Tuesday, I feel optimistic that we as a people are really ready for change, I'll probably vote for Obama," he said.

"I'm secretly hoping I feel optimistic. I think we need it."

Civic leader Phil Goldsmith, who said yesterday he was wearing an Obama button on one lapel and a Clinton button on the other, has a more drastic solution.

He may not vote for either one.

Goldsmith said he likes both candidates and has reservations about each of them, too.

"I do plan to vote, certainly for other offices, but may pass on the presidential side.

"I still believe this is an intramural scrimmage and the real contest is in November," he said.

Try telling that to Michael Ginsberg. *

E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/porter