Undecided voters few in heated ’04 election campaign

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BURNHAM – When it comes to presidential politics, this is no party town.

Those in this small, Waldo County village of just over 1,000 people aren’t prone to pick sides before Election Day, having the highest percentage of independent, or so-called “unenrolled,” voters in the state.

Just two weeks ago, 20-year-old Liz Misner became the town’s newest registered voter, and, like 60 percent of her fellow townspeople, she didn’t sign up with a political party.

Moreover, Misner still finds herself torn between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry with less than nine weeks before Election Day.

“Every day I hear things that change my mind,” said Misner, looking particularly youthful this recent day with her Boston Bruins cap and Sesame Street T-shirt. “I don’t think I’ll know how I’m going to vote until I’m in the voting booth.”

Misner is not alone in her indecision. But she is among an unprecedented few who are still on the fence.

Recent national polls, almost without exception, indicate the vast majority of likely voters have already chosen sides in this year’s presidential contest.

Less than 5 percent remain undecided, most polls show, a stark departure from late summer surveys in previous election years that typically put the number of undecided voters in the mid-teens.

The polarization can be explained a few different ways, political analysts say.

First, the presidential campaign – including the onslaught of television advertisements – started earlier than normal. Second, voters have had four years to form opinions about the Republican incumbent who inspires as much loyalty among his supporters as animosity among his detractors.

“If you hate Bush, you really hate him. If you think Kerry’s a doofus, you really think it,” said Republican pollster Christian Potholm, who called the polarization trend “unprecedented.”

“There’s not much in the way of middle ground,” he said.

At this stage in the game, fence-sitters, all things being equal, tend to vote against an incumbent, some analysts say. This year, the trend is reinforced by Bush’s lackluster job approval numbers and the high percentage of likely voters who believe the country is headed in the “wrong direction.”

But Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington, said it’s impossible to predict where the rare undecided voter will fall, with much depending on developments in the Iraq war and whether the economy shows marked improvement in the next two months.

“Things can break very late,” Melcher said, citing the 1980 election, in which Republican Ronald Reagan pulled ahead of Jimmy Carter in the polls with only a few weeks before Election Day.

Although undecided voters might be atypical this season, Misner is a typical undecided voter in at least three ways: She’s single, she’s young and she’s a woman.

Recent national polls show between 58 percent and 66 percent of undecided voters are women. The majority are single and a disproportionate number are young, according to Vincent Breglio of Wirthlin Worldwide, a Reston, Va.-based research firm that recently interviewed 4,000 voters across the country.

Based on the results, Breglio concluded that the once large independent voting bloc for which candidates would so fiercely compete simply doesn’t exist this year.

“That squishy third is gone,” Breglio said, downplaying the importance of the few remaining undecided voters, most of whom, he said, wouldn’t vote on Election Day.

Back in Burnham, Misner, although confessing to having more passion for music than politics, said she will vote Nov. 2.

While still considering herself undecided, she did say she was leaning toward Kerry in these waning weeks, frustrated with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.

“Something irks me about the way he went in there,” Misner said, wishing Bush had exhausted more options before committing U.S. troops. “I agree we had to go, but he did it all wrong.”

While Republicans outnumber Democrats in Misner’s town, independent voters easily outnumber both and more so than anywhere else in Maine, based on voter registration lists compiled by the Secretary of State’s Office.

The town’s distinction can make primary elections, which in most cases require voters to register in a party, especially lonely.

“When you have 30-something people, that’s boredom when you’re open for 10 hours,” said Caroline Mitchell, the town clerk for 34 years. “That’s [utter] boredom.”

During presidential elections, however, voters here come out in respectable numbers, about 65 percent, Mitchell said. In 2000, voters here broke Democratic choosing former Vice President Al Gore over Bush by just five votes.

The senior George Bush fared far worse in this politically pendulous town, with the plainspoken Reform Party candidate Ross Perot easily defeating both Bush and Clinton in 1992.

While living in southern New Hampshire, David and Nancy Tkachuk voted for George H.W. Bush – once.

Now living in their lakeside home in Burnham, the Tkachuks aren’t so sure about casting their votes for the younger President Bush or the junior Massachusetts senator, for that matter.

“I honestly want to hear something from the heart, not just the rhetoric,” said David Tkachuk, a 53-year-old designer and registered independent. “It’s always been about the person for me, not the party.”

Nancy Tkachuk, a children’s case worker at a private preschool, said she also was willing to give the incumbent a chance to win her vote considering the hard times during which he has held office.

“I know there’s been a lot of criticism about how [Bush] is running our country, but who’s to say if anyone else could have done any better?” she asked.

Jeff Barnes, yet another of the town’s independent voters, has an answer to that question.

“I’m not so much pro-Kerry as I am anti-Bush,” said Barnes, a 58-year-old disabled mill worker who said he voted for Bush in 2000 in part because Gore’s monotone voice “turned him off.”

Barnes, who described himself as a “middle of the road guy,” later became disappointed in a Bush administration policy that he said encourages employers to move jobs overseas.

“I’m independent minded, but I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “I don’t particularly like politicians anyway.”