Why can't you decide on a candidate?

Going into the Iowa caucuses NPR reported the high percentage of undecided voters and said with a number that high the result was unpredictable. Yup, few predictions (if any) for Santorum tying with Romney. But the campaign has been going on for essentially a year. Why were there undecided voters so close to the deadline?

Back in 2004 Christopher Hayes, now an editor of The Nation and contributor to MSNBC, wrote an article that appeared in The New Republic about undecided voters. That year he spent seven weeks of the campaign in the suburbs around Madison, Wisconsin looking for undecided voters and trying to convince them to vote for John Kerry in his race against Bush. He found those undecided voters (based on anecdotal evidence) fell into a few categories.

Those who didn't have a rational analysis of the situation. Those included: Believing Cheney, an oilman, would make us independent of foreign oil. Believing Bush supported stem-cell research.

Those who cared enough to vote, but found the whole thing unpleasant -- like doing the laundry. Why do laundry (decide who to vote for) before you absolutely have to?

Those who were rabid racists. This was at the height of the Iraq war and when that topic came up the reactions would be quite strong and nasty. Bush's rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy in the Arab world fell flat.

Those who didn't think either candidate could help the situation. As things got bad in Iraq, opinions of Bush improved. Yeah, Bush is bad, but Kerry couldn't possibly do any better. All politicians are bad and nobody can fix things.

Those who don't make a connection between their problems and political solutions. Cost of health care is high! Kerry has a solution. C'mon, politicians can't fix that!

So, if issues don't connect with undecided voters, what do they base their decisions on? Values and character.

Hayes says Dems have two choices: Promote character instead of issues (usually a progressive strong suit) or take the long road of rebuilding the political vocabulary. Perhaps both.

I look over the categories that Hayes presents and see some similarities of another kind. I don't see politics as unpleasant, just annoying. I'd like to ignore the whole mess. But my progressive foundation won't let me. But on to the other items in the list.

Incapable of rational analysis -- conservatives and the GOP seem to be pushing irrational analysis -- no such thing as a climate crisis, the way to prosperity is to cut taxes and eliminate regulation, it's all Obama's fault. No wonder voters are confused.

Racists, well, bigots in general -- the GOP is catering to them.

Candidates can't help the situation -- the GOP is doing all it can to create a feeling of hopelessness.

Pushing character instead of issues -- who claims to have a corner on "values voters"? How about claims of moral character?

It's only January and I'm already pushing the off button when I hear a GOP candidate open his mouth.