Our friend Alyssa from Massachusetts takes an amusing poke at voters in New Hampshire who remain undecided up to the day before the primary. It prompted this probably over-sincere and humorless defense from me in her comment box — which I share also here in case someone's feeling guilty about being yet undecided (you now have fewer than 12 hours before the polls close in Manchester — hurry up!).
I have a lot of sympathy, empathy even, for voters in New Hampshire who remained undecided up to the last. There's a lot of a data to process for New Hampshire voters, and much of it is more complicated than matching your issues to the candidate's on an issues grid. Meeting the candidates, which many undecided voters have had the opportunity to do, has a big impact — you may disagree on some issues with a candidate but moved by them as a person — in person. Then combine that with the issues grid; if you're an independent, you've got to analyze the issues grids for all the candidates in both parties. Then have to read more deeply on key issues. And then, since you have the opportunity to do so, you may feel you have an obligation to meet the candidates before making a final decision (I really like candidate X, but I'm calling myself undecided until I meet candidate Y because his health care plan seems to dovetail more closely the AMA recommendations that the AMA PR guy who was sitting next to me at the diner yesterday was explaining.) There may be times when Malcolm Gladwell style thin-slicing is the best way to make a decision, but I don't think it's an election. Especially not a primary. Especially not the New Hampshire primary! It's a time, more than ever, where voters ought to get deep into the weeds and not come up until the very last. If they don't do that, they're not taking full advantage of the very unique opportunity New Hampshire voters have.
