JONAH HITS A HOME RUN

I love this guy...

In the second group are the "undecided" independents.

These are the people we hear from the most in the final weeks of any presidential campaign, largely because politicians are going to hunt where the ducks are and, duh, the undecideds haven't decided yet. After every presidential debate of the general election, there's a focus group filled with undecideds; they're treated like Olympic judges rather than astoundingly uninformed citizens. They complain that they didn't get enough information from the candidates, or they didn't get enough "details" on this or that policy. They ape Rodin's Thinker over whether to choose George W. Bush or Al Gore, Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, Poppy Bush or Michael Dukakis.

Here's how one undecided explained her thinking in 2000 to the Boston Globe: "One day I'm for Gore (her mother called from California to say he'd protect the environment), the next day it's Bush (she thinks he's funny). . . . If I had to go out to dinner with one of them, I'd choose Bush. . . . But here's what goes through my mind. Let's say a meteorite was coming toward Earth. Who has the better judgment?... I wish I could decide.'"

Now, I am all for taking civic responsibilities seriously, particularly voting. I'd greatly prefer very low voter turnout among serious-minded people to high voter turnout among people who saunter into the voting booths between trips to the mall and the face-piercing spa. But let me make one thing very clear: Being undecided, in and of itself, is not a mark of seriousness or intelligence. If you really are undecided between having a bowl of strawberry ice cream and being smacked in the forehead with a garden rake, you're not very intelligent; you're just very, very stoopid.

I tend to agree with him that I hope the uninformed just stay home.

But go read it all...you deserve it.