Still Thinking

The third and final Presidential debate is this evening and I have to say I am quite excited for it. Not because I actually want to hear what Mitt Romney and President Obama have to say about foreign policy, but because it means we are almost done with election season. We are just a couple weeks away from the end of robo-calls and volunteers trying to read through a poorly-written script without being hung up on. [Quick tip: I recently discovered that if you hit redial after a political call some of the time it will get you in touch with the people in charge of recording the message, at which point you can opt-out of any future phone calls. It doesn't always work, but when it does it feels like you found a cheat code for the game of life.] Honestly, this year's election has felt particularly dragged-out and I'm pretty much ready for it to be over. I think one of the main reasons it seems to have taken so long is because it feels like we could have started tallying up the votes months ago. Most people decided who they were planning on voting for as soon as the nominees were finalized and almost everyone else made up their minds a few weeks later. The debates are going to do next to nothing to change the minds of about 95% of people who plan on voting. Of course, that makes you wonder about the remaining 5%.

Now, at first you may feel there is something admirable about not automatically jumping to one side or another based on nothing more than blind party loyalty. People should take the time and look at both candidate's records, beliefs and political histories before they decide which person they want speaking for them for the next four years. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that period of examination has passed by now. You have had over four years to get to know the President and Mitt Romney has been the presumptive nominee for almost a full year. You've had enough time to do your research and at this point you aren't learning any more about them. So, I can't decide if these remaining 'undecided' voters are trying to seem edgy and aloof or if they have this much of a problem making a decision in all facets of their lives. I'm not saying every time I have walked into a voting booth it was done with 100% certainty about who I was voting for, but that was for things like town dog catcher, not Leader of the Free World. It's a big decision, but still one which should have been made well before this point. The good news is that "Saturday Night Live" is on the case and will hopefully shame these people into picking a candidate in the very near future.