Anatomy of a Voter's Deliberations

Last week I had a phone conversation with a friend of mine which involved recent, national-headline-grabbing events in her city. She lives in Detroit, and had been briefing me for months on the steady path of that city's erstwhile mayor toward unseating and, now, jail time.

Our talk turned to Presidential politics. My friend is black, so she is, on simply the basis of demographics, an apparently easily-typed voter. One would naturally assume, especially this year, that she will vote for the freshman Senator from Illinois.

As it happens, she wasn't sure for whom she would vote, between him and Hillary. If memory serves, she didn't get the chance to choose when Michigan held its Democratic primary last spring.

Now, she surprised me with the news that she had been seriously considering voting for McCain. His reputation as a Washington outsider and irascible change agent made him her potential candidate of choice.

Ironically, she told me his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP sent my friend back toward the rookie from Illinois.

You see, my friend is pro-abortion, and nothing else about Palin captures her attention except the VP candidate's pro-life stance.

Nothing.

Just minutes after my friend decried single-issue voters, she reversed course and told me she was no longer remotely interested in voting for McCain, since that would potentially bring Palin to the Oval Office.

I'm not judging my friend's choice. She is who she is, and is entitled to her political views. Politics, as I told my daughter recently, is emotional. Rationality frequently leaves a person when s/he is discussing politics. And, this is America. Quadrennial voting for President is probably our ultimate expression of political freedom, even if, technically, we don't popularly elect the President.

But my Detroit friend's political course changes and deliberations made me think about the polls we all see on a daily basis now, as well as frequent projections of stereotyped voter bases.

This year, with the two major party candidates so extremely different in their philosophical approaches to using Federal power and the White House, it's difficult for me to believe two things.

First, that old demographic trends and typical behavior will still hold sway.

Second, that many polled individuals will remain solid in their choices throughout the next eight weeks.