Almost everybody's undecided!

I know of some Democrats who picked their candidates months or weeks ago. I don't know anyone here in Yoknapatawpha County who has been committed to either John McCain or Mitt Romney from the beginning.

The worldwide web reflects the uncertainty. Here is a sampling:

One Republican is tired of the attacks on McCain and wants to be convinced of the "merits of Mitt."

Two conservative law professors support McCain on judicial appointments.

Megan McArdle endorses Romney and Obama.

It can be lonely supporting Hillary in certain quarters.

Meanwhile, many Democrats continue to doubt Hillary Clinton because they know that Bill is going to turn the White House into a soap opera and undermine the U.S. government just by being Bill.

Walter Shapiro, a former Carter aid, also writes openly about his qualms with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Rebecca Traister writes about how her father proudly voted for Geraldine Ferraro for vice president in 1984. Here we are twenty-four years later, and she is not sure she can vote for Hillary.

Camille Paglia speaks for many of us when she hopes that Barack Obama buries the Clintons' ambitions:

'Hillary's willingness to tolerate Bill's compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men. She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them. Following the pattern of her long-suffering mother, she thinks it is her mission to endure every insult and personal degradation for a higher cause -- which, unlike her self-sacrificing mother, she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.

'It's no coincidence that Hillary's staff has always consisted mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys forming an adjunct brain trust. Hillary's rumored hostility to uniformed military men and some Secret Service agents early in the first Clinton presidency probably belongs to this pattern. And let's not forget Hillary, the governor's wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock.

'Hillary's disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip. Steinem's fawning, gaseous New York Times op-ed about her pal Hillary this week speaks volumes about the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment, which has blessedly fallen off the cultural map in the 21st century. History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary.'

Sometimes it takes someone as blunt as Camille to say what many of us have felt since 1992.

Today will be a good day as far as I'm concerned if the Clintons are farther tonight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than they were yesterday. I cannot mend the Republican wars, and there is no candidate left standing at this time that I trust completely as commander-in-chief and as appointer of our federal judges. (I don't really think the president has much to do with the economy, though they all have to pretend they do, and they all gladly take credit when times are good.)

One issue is not likely to be solved fairly anytime soon: immigration. The various factions have become Manichean in their views towards those who oppose them. I've been told that I'm "un-American" and "liberal" because I don't want to restrict immigration as much as the next guy.

As many of you know, on immigration I want to control our borders, but I am always conscious that the Old Testament instructs us to "remember the stranger in your midst." There is an ugly vindictiveness among many of the anti-immigration activists. I don't trust anyone who thinks America is going to be saved by punishing severely people whose only crimes were to violate immigration and labor laws. Many activists have defined "sellout" so broadly that it might not be possible to amend our immigration statutes to make them comply with the laws of labor economics. Many of the most outspoken would treat as criminals millions of people who might have done more for America than they have. They would mandate a 21st-century "trail of tears" for Latinos and act like victims when it too fails.

Legal immigration, including the holding of social security numbers, payment of federal and local taxes, military service, and home ownership by foreign-born Americans, is the only way we will remain the world's most powerful nation. As my smug brethren among the babyboomers get older, more statist, and more entitled to government benefits, we will need to accept, educate, and nurture immigrant citizens. Criminalizing people who are desperate and poor but perseverant enough to crawl across the U.S. border is a foolish waste of resources. Our laws need to reward people who risk everything to come to America to work and build their families. Our laws need to bring out the best in our humanity rather than foster a generation of criminals and exploiters. We can either attract and assimilate immigrants by the millions or become the shell of a great nation- proud, spiteful, collectivist, hardheaded, and geriatric, like France.