In a country as radically polarized as ours, the undecideds decide every election.

Conventional political wisdom, and, for at least the last two elections, a fairly accurate summation of how things worked.  (It isn't universal; Bill Clinton won the Presidency not by swaying undecideds at the last minute, but because Ross Perot grabbed a big chunk of the vote that otherwise would have gone to Father Bush.)

Yet if the last minute undecideds have decided the last two elections, it seems to me we need look no further to discover the source of all our woes. 

Because, frankly, if someone is honestly 'undecided' when confronted with a choice between George W. Bush and Al Gore, or George W. Bush and John Kerry, or, for that matter, George W. Bush and Mortimer frickin SNERD, well... as some comedian or another once opined, these are people we do not need.  These are walking, talking, slope browed slack jawed exemplars for why maybe oft despised social programs like eugenics and/or early euthenasia might be worth considering, after all.

A further musing on the subject of the Undecided Voter, and Conventional Political Wisdom:

As a general rule, candidates lock up their base during the nomination process, then move to the middle in the general election to appeal to moderates and indies (again, the dreaded undecided voter).  Some candidates only move a little bit, others move a great deal, but still, this is the usual practice, because it's generally safe to assume that once a candidate has his or her party's nomination, the base of that party's electorate is safely in that candidate's pocket, regardless of how much pandering the candidate now does to pick up some of the all important Middle Of The Road voters.

Bill Clinton has long been considered king of this kind of politicking.  He ran exactly as far to the left as he needed to to get the nomination, then moved pretty deep into the center to appeal to moderate voters.  (Why Clinton is considered a genius for this is beyond me, again, without Ross Perot's invaluable aid in 1992, Clinton could have triangulated until he was blue in the face and he still wouldn't have won the White House.  Conservatism was just too strong, and for all Daddy Bush lacked in charisma, he still had the incumbency on his side.)

It's interesting to me that John McCain is the first candidate I can think of who is going about a Presidential bid from the opposite direction.  His political cred as a straight talking maverick moderate means he starts out with enormous appeal to the moderates, indies, and undecideds, and he can rely on his popularity with the MSM to keep that essentially false facade largely intact through November. 

However, that same largely false facade makes him toxic to his party's base.  In the general election, McCain finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to selectively punch holes in his maverick aura that only the avid Red State carnivores will bother to peer through, while maintaining his bogus street cred as an honest independent moderate with the all important moderate, undecided voters.

It's a balancing act of frankly mind boggling proportion, and if he somehow manages to pull it off, I would nominate him (or whoever runs his campaign) as the true king of political gamesmanship.

However, I don't think McCain really has much of a shot at doing it.  There's only one real master of political gamesmanship on the national scene right now, and his initials are BHO.  What I find ironic -- delightfully so, in fact -- is that Obama's mastery of the political field is manifesting itself in an utterly deceptive aura of post-political innocence.  To actually sell an entire nation (or a significant percentage of it) on the idea that one is above politics, one HAS to be an absolute master of politics.

Compare this to Senator Clinton's 'masterstrokes', like, trying to convince the rednecks that she's a rootin tootin shotgun shootin shot-and-a-beer chuggin' cowgirl just like them.  And then tell me which is the stronger candidate.