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Can’t Decide? Maybe That’s Your Best Choice

An undecided voter at the Nevada caucus in February.Credit...Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ARE Americans having a hard time making up their minds? We can’t decide. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won the biggest share of delegates over the last week but Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders have done well enough to keep the race going. If you ask me, this is cause for celebration: the longer it takes, the better.

I speak as someone with a serious commitment to indecision. There I was, in 1992, an uncommitted delegate to the Maine Democratic State Convention that May. The race was murky — Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa had won his home state, Senator Paul Tsongas had won in New Hampshire and Gov. Bill Clinton’s resurgence as the “Comeback Kid” had begun. In Maine, we were still trying to figure it all out.

At our caucus, back in February, we’d all split into groups — one for Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, two others for Mr. Clinton and Mr. Tsongas. And then there was my group — the Fightin’ Fence-Sitters. People in the Brown corner were eating chocolate-frosted doughnuts. “Come on,” said one, urging us over. “Join us!”

My feeling was that the undecideds should hold their ground, and statewide the uncommitted slate actually edged just ahead of Mr. Clinton. By the time the state convention came around, I thought, we’d be power brokers. I imagined Mr. Clinton, Mr. Tsongas and Mr. Brown begging for our support, bargaining and pleading with us. My fellow undecideds and I would use our considerable leverage to pressure someone else to join the race — Mario Cuomo! Ted Kennedy! Pat Moynihan! Who knew?

Our commitment to indecision then wasn’t just an obstinate reluctance to make up our minds. It was about dissatisfaction with our choices, and the hope that instead of making the wrong choice in a hurry, we might take the extra time to find a better one.

By the convention, however, it was all over, or nearly. Mr. Tsongas dropped out in March; Mr. Brown would quit after losing the California primary in June. And the undecided caucus showed up at the Bangor convention irrelevant and unnecessary. All I could think of were those doughnuts. We sat on the sidelines, watching the floor demonstrations for Mr. Brown, Mr. Tsongas and Mr. Clinton, exasperated with the other delegates’ sense of certainty, a little jealous of how much fun they were having.

The Brown supporters were clearly having the best party. They whooped and hollered and sang; they were old hippies and young progressives excited by the idea of changing the world, even if the odds of putting any of Mr. Brown’s ideas into law seemed long. His slogan that year was “Take Back America!”

The Tsongas supporters seemed glum, in comparison to the Brown party, not least because their candidate was out of the race. They were on the floor chanting the humble slogan “We Like Paul!” They were nice people, a little embarrassed by all the fuss. Then they sat down.

When the Clinton people came onto the floor, they weren’t shouting “We Like Bill,” or “Take Back America.” They chanted: “Beat George Bush!” (this being Bush 41, who, although no longer enjoying the 89 percent approval he’d scored during the first Persian Gulf war, still seemed the favorite). The sense was that no matter what we felt about Mr. Clinton, he was still our best bet: the pragmatic choice.

But as I watched the Clinton delegates on the convention floor that year, it occurred to me that what I really wanted was a demonstration on behalf of the uncommitted. Why didn’t we get to cheer? “We Aren’t Sure!” our signs might say.

But there aren’t any parties for the undecided. Americans hate the idea of having to wait until all the facts are in before making up our minds; we would rather make a decision, even if it’s for something we haven’t thought out very well, than dwell in ambiguity a moment longer than necessary. This is why people wind up with misspelled tattoos (“Im Awsome” or “No Regerts!”), or married to people they met at Burning Man.

“The best lack all conviction,” wrote William Butler Yeats, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

In 2016, as in 1992, Republicans seem poised to reward the passionately intense. I do not know if Donald Trump is “the worst,” but one thing he does not seem to lack is conviction.

It’s moments like these that I yearn for a national movement on behalf of the uncertain. Because taking extra time to consider our most important choices is always a better option for a democracy than simply leaping into the abyss.

Otherwise, we might well wake up one morning in January 2017 to find a president who doesn’t know anything. Except that he is Awsome. I’m not certain of much, but I do know this: That’s the choice that will fill us with Regert.

Jennifer Finney Boylan, a contributing opinion writer, is a professor of English at Barnard College and special adviser to the president of Colby College.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: The Uncertainty Principle. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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