Campaigns Boiling Down to a Dwindling Swing Vote

Marshall Burstein, man of action, is stuck.

“I run a company or two; I have to be decisive,” he said. But when it comes to choosing the next president, the 44-year-old Burstein is waiting to see who Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry picks as a running mate. And he wants to hear the presumed Democratic nominee and President Bush debate.

“A lot of people are picking Kerry because they don’t like the war [in Iraq].... I’m still learning about him,” he said.

In most election years, the next line might read, “And Marshall Burstein is not alone.” But this spring, he very nearly is.

With the nation clearly divided on a number of issues, the presidential campaigns operating virtually nonstop and torrents of political ads already unleashed, undecided voters are fast becoming an endangered species. They are also a precious commodity to both parties.

Many political analysts say as few as 2 million voters could make the difference in this election -- those in the 17 or so most closely contested states who are struggling over whom to back.

“There’s a very small pool of voters out there who are up for grabs, and the amount being spent on this election is higher than we’ve ever spent before,” said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn.

He added that the number of undecided voters “is the lowest I can remember, and I’ve been covering politics for about 40 years.”

Here in the graceful suburbs that radiate out from St. Louis, where the trees are in full spring leaf and the 90-90 days of summer heat and humidity lie ahead, it took scores of interviews to find a handful of undecided voters more than five months before the election.

There will always be those such as Cheryl Colonnello, a pregnant pediatric resident who lives in University City, works 80 hours a week, has a toddler, a husband and a dog and barely has time to brush her hair, let alone pay attention to the candidates.

But political experts believe many of the undecided voters are of a different breed. Generally centrist and turned off by what they regard as strident partisanship, they are thinking about the election and “wrestling with their choice,” said Tim Hibbitts, an independent pollster in Portland, Ore.

Those who are still contemplating their choices should give both major-party candidates pause. The war in Iraq looms large with many, and has created doubts about Bush. But Kerry has yet to introduce himself well enough to win them over.

Most of the men and women interviewed here were rock solid -- albeit not always happy -- with the candidate they planned to vote for in November. And many marveled about how anyone could still not know who to pick for president, given the differences between Kerry and Bush.

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a strong opinion,” said John Brandon of University City, who backs Bush. “You can talk to anyone walking down the street here, and they know if they’re voting for Kerry or Bush.”

Well, almost anyone.

Abbie Carlin, 51, who says she has never voted for a Democrat, can’t bring herself to vote for the Republican this year. On opening day of the Clayton farmers market, she shopped for organic produce and rued the violence in Iraq.

Persuaded that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction that could be turned against the United States, Carlin said, she initially believed that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

Then she was appalled, she said, when Bush declared the war was over, only to see U.S. casualties escalate amid no discoveries of Iraqi nuclear weapons. Now, she says she feels betrayed -- by the war, by the way the administration has handled its aftermath, by the Iraqi prisoner scandal. “A huge, horrible mess” is how she described it.

But she still cannot bring herself to vote for Bush’s rival. Kerry, Carlin said, is a politician she just can’t trust, although she’s beginning to think “you can’t trust any of them.”

Her default is to sit this election out: “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might not vote. They’re both extremely distasteful to me.”

Voters like Carlin are mired in the murky middle of what David Robertson, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, described as the two-step process of picking a president in races featuring an incumbent. First, voters tend to decide how they feel about the White House occupant. Only then do they consider the competition.

“People are going to have to make the decision to reject the incumbent and then to embrace the guy from the other party,” Robertson said. “That’s not easy to do. I expect it will happen late.”

Late is pretty much Burstein’s timetable, like “somewhere closer to election day.”

The owner of a home furnishing company and an interior design business in Clayton, he voted for Democrat Al Gore in 2000, independent Ross Perot in 1996.

He doesn’t consider Iraq to be another Vietnam, but he does question why Bush targeted the country for war. “They haven’t proven there were atomic warheads there,” he said, “so what’s the point?”

His decision, Burstein said, is made more difficult by much of the coverage of the campaign and the political attacks the sides exchange.

“Me, the guy reading the paper, is left wondering whether George Bush is as dumb as they say. I don’t know,” he said. “Does it matter that Kerry went to war? I don’t know.”

Evidence of the small number of undecided voters has become increasingly strong in recent weeks, showing up in the polls and on the Internet.

Meetup.com -- the Web-based group that brings together communities of interest -- recently floated the idea of scheduling a monthly National Undecided Voters Meetup Day. While nearly 10,000 people get together regularly through the organization to knit, only 22 of its 1.24 million members registered any interest in talking about making up their minds.

“There are 22 people signed up worldwide,” said William Finkel, Meetup.com outreach manager. “There will be no events.”

Nearly every recent national poll has found the percentage of undecided voters to be in the mid- to low single digits. A Gallup survey released in early May said that 3% of those polled did not know who they would vote for in November.

In comparison, a Gallup Poll at about this same time in 2000 found 8% undecided.

Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster, stressed that this year, not every undecided voter is created equal in the eyes of the campaigns.

“An undecided person in California or New York or South Carolina or Texas doesn’t really matter,” Ayres said, because Kerry is heavily favored to carry the first two states while Bush is the strong favorite in the latter pair. The only undecideds expected to matter are those in the swing states, “which means maybe 2 or 3 million people,” Ayres said.

A chunk of those prized voters live in Missouri, which has voted for the winner in 24 of the last 25 presidential elections.

Democrats and Republicans alike are hard at work across the state, canvassing neighborhoods. Although they’d love to find an undecided voter or two, both parties are focused on cementing known support, at least for now.

According to polling by America Coming Together, a Democratic activist group, fewer than 5% of Missouri voters are undecided. Those findings were reinforced one recent Friday, when canvassers armed with Palm Pilots and voter registration forms took to the streets of Berkeley, a largely African American suburb near the St. Louis airport.

But they hit pay dirt with William Bridges, 21, an unemployed airport worker who illustrates the challenges facing Kerry. Bridges was a strong Gore backer in 2000 and thinks Bush is doing a lousy job. He wants a president to help create “decent jobs, not in fast-food restaurants” and help “kids with no food.”

A slam-dunk Kerry voter? Not yet. Not until the challenger does a better job of explaining himself. “I’ve got to get more insights about him,” said Bridges.

Volunteers for Bush’s campaign fanned out on a recent Saturday in farther-flung St. Louis suburbs, mainly looking for supporters to work phones and display yard signs. But they came upon the occasional undecided voter, such as Mike Regan, 41, out mowing his lawn in Ballwin.

The restaurant manager was a Clinton man in 1996, a Bush voter in 2000. “I thought we needed a change” four years ago, he said.

Regan needs to hear what plans Kerry has for the future, particularly in foreign policy.

“I’m still kind of waiting and seeing what happens over in Iraq,” he said as he pondered another vote for Bush. “Maybe we might need a change.”

Again.

Times staff writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report. *

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The undecided few

Several recent polls have found small numbers of undecided voters at this point in the presidential race.

ABC News/Washington Post Bush 46% Kerry 46% Nader 4% Undecided/ no opinion 3%

Conducted May 20-23, asked of 1,005 registered voters nationwide. The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points.

CBS News Bush 41% Kerry 47% Nader 5% Won’t vote/ Don’t know 5% Other/depends 2%

Conducted May 20-23, asked of 923 registered voters nationwide. The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Bush 46% Kerry 47% Nader 4% Undecided/ no opinion 3%

Conducted May 21-23, asked of 579 likely voters nationwide. The margin of error is +/-4 percentage points.

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Bush 43% Kerry 46% Nader 6% Undecided/ no opinion 5%

Conducted May 3-9, asked of 1,465 registered voters nationwide. The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points.

Some polls may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Source: The Polling Report