Presidential Election 2004

It's now about 2 weeks away. As I look over the two candidates, I feel more strongly than ever about what Kerry has to offer. I have a theory regarding the election that was borrowed from a friend of mine...

I'm 35 now and really have not had much of an opinion regarding politics until now. I'll be voting for Kerry to simply get rid of Bush. So the question to pose at this point is as follows:

Which candidate is going to get the lethargic vote? My vision of Republicans include responsible church-going people who never miss an opportunity to speak their mind and show up at the obligatory cake sale or church car wash. I'm having a hard time envisioning a lethargic republican voter. These are the people who go to early voting.

My belief is that Kerry will win at the last minute because of all the lethargic procrastinators who hate the way current events are unfolding and somehow are pissed off enough to finally do something about it. In the recent polls, undecided voters have been taking up the slack considerably. In almost every poll, the survey includes 38% republican, 32% democrats and 30% undecided. Who invariably wins the poll? John Kerry by 1 percentage point. If we assume that all the republicans thought their candidate was the best and all the democrats thought their candidate did best, the undecideds likely favored Kerry to help him finish at 49%.

But being undecided is much different than just being a first time voter. I'm not talking about the 18 year old first time voter....I'm talking about the 35 year old first time voter. The attitude for this type of voter is "My one vote can't make a difference" and "Politicians are all crooks so why bother." There's also the realization that the Supreme Court Justices could also end up deciding who our next president is unless people get up off their asses.

One last thing. The electoral college sucks. When is someone going to propose that the popular vote rule the election. This is another convention that makes logical people feel cynical about the system. Even if only 51% of the people in a state choose a particular president, all the electoral votes go to that candidate. A popular vote would more accurately represent the opinon of each individual.