undecided minds

The New Yorker's David Sedaris wrote an amusing piece for the current issue. It's about undecided voters and the American presidential election. Sedaris, naturally, is a liberal and a supporter of Obama, so on this topic and in the context of a race between an obviously superior candidate, Obama, and the woeful McCain, Sedaris writes:

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.

Funny, but is this the way we should look at undecided voters? Are they really this dumb; this incapable of seeing the great and relevant distinctions between Obama and McCain? Well, two neuroscientists want to say that undecideds "may be more willing than others to take their time — or else just unaware that they have essentially already made a choice." Although they may "require a higher degree of confidence before they commit", they might nevertheless betray a preference, an inclination, for one choice over the other. "In psychological studies, people who describe themselves as undecided often reveal a pronounced preference when they are forced to choose. When someone reports being only “moderately sure” of a decision like whether to accept a new job, his eventual choice is all but certain."

If this is true, many self-identifying undecided voters might, after all, be staunch supporters of one or the other (preferebly Obama). And the question Sedaris asks, "I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?", might after all be meant for no one.