Undecided Voters

ROCKVILLE - As his daughter dribbled a black-and-white ball across a sun-splashed field, Steve Hubberman let his mind wander. Like everyone else in Montgomery County, he was no longer preoccupied with concerns of gunmen. He could relish the routine pleasure of a weekend fourth-grade soccer game. And he could begin to think about whom he might vote for when he goes to his polling place in nine days. "I haven't made up my mind. I have to start to focus," said Hubberman, 38, a commercial real estate broker from Potomac.

You are an undecided voter. In eight days, you go to the polls to vote for the next president of the United States. But you still can't make up your mind. The pollsters come knocking at your door. Or call you on the phone. "Barack Obama or John McCain?" they ask. "Gee, I don't know," you say. "It's so hard to choose." Really? Can I be honest here? You scare the rest of us. You really do. The polls say you represent between 5 percent and 12 percent of the electorate. The pundits say you could have a major impact on the election.

WASHINGTON -- The big story in Internet politics is the Howard Dean presidential campaign. In the third quarter of the fund-raising cycle, the former Vermont governor raised just under $15 million, about half of it online. His average online contribution is about $74. Dr. Dean, with the consent of his followers, is also opting out of the public financing system. He is counting on the Internet to make himself competitive with President Bush. The Dean campaign has also used Meetup.com very effectively.

Megan Hardy, an education major at Towson University, has taken her time to figure out who should get her very first vote for governor this fall. She has thought about the issues and talked to her friends, but one thing she hasn't done to make up her mind is pay the slightest bit of attention to the millions of dollars' worth of TV ads that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley are using to pump up their accomplishments and...

CUMBERLAND -- The way Harold E. Appel sees it, American Joe Miedusiewski is Maryland's best bet for governor -- even if he is a Democrat.That's why you'll find a red, white and blue "American Joe for Governor" sign in a place of honor covering the neon "Bud" logo behind the bar at Appel's Gateway lounge."

MOSCOW -- Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, resplendent in a high-collared, custom-made jacket as yellow as a Yellow cab, was brandishing a bottle of his namesake vodka and half a hard-boiled egg topped with red caviar."

LAKE MARY, Fla. - The Meacham brothers, Ed and Dwayne, were kidding around in the parking lot after listening to George W. Bush make a speech at Seminole Community College this week. Ed likes the Republican candidate and was, he said, "fired up." But Dwayne - "That's pronounced Dee-wayne because our mom thought it sounded better" - prefers Al Gore and wasn't impressed. It turns out that it doesn't matter, though, since neither expects to vote. Dwayne Meacham moved since the last election and thinks his registration isn't valid anymore.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening, Ellen R. Sauerbrey and their barrage of attack ads have done what not even a ringing phone can -- disrupt Jim Carter's nightly ritual of watching the weather report."

The long and bitter campaign over Maryland's new abortion law is dragging toward Tuesday's finale with many voters still undecided on how to vote and confused about what the measure would do.Last week, a Channel 2 poll, taken by Mason-Dixon Opinion Research, showed 51 percent favoring the new law, with 37 percent intending to vote against and 12 percent still undecided.Sources in each campaign said that internal polls, which campaign groups decline to release, show parallel results."That's a high number of undecideds," says Maura Keefe,spokeswoman for Maryland for Choice.

ROCKVILLE - If Christopher Van Hollen Jr. wants to watch a creepy movie, he doesn't need to rent Night of the Living Dead - for him, the PBS documentary Taking on the Kennedys is a political horror film. The film chronicles an accomplished physician's unsuccessful 1994 Rhode Island congressional race against a young Patrick Kennedy, with all of his family mystique and connections. Van Hollen has seen the 1996 film and decided nevertheless to take on a Kennedy this year for the U.S. House of Representatives - Maryland's Mark Kennedy Shriver.