Reply #49: Excitement, Sir, Cannot Be Whomped Up Out Of Thin Air

[The Magistrate]

If there really is no hotly contested race, there will be no great excitement over the contest. In this primary, there really is not, now, a great deal of real competition for the Presidential nomination left; whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is to one side of a judgement whether that is the state of play.

The truth is that very few people make up their minds concerning their vote at the last moment: like most questions of human relationships, elections are largely settled by first impressions, and just as you will generally know within seconds when you have met a friend, people generally know quite early who they really are going to vote for, if they are going to vote at all. That latter question is more often decided late, and thus most campaign efforts turn on solidifying the decision of supporters to vote.

It is true that in narrow contests, the small number of people who do not make up their minds at the start, whether by ideological or other political conviction, or the feeling that a particular candidate is the one they feel in tune with at first sight, become an object of intensive courtship, but in a situation where one candidate has a decisive lead over another before the polls open, they have little effect.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"