his is an election that may well be decided by unhappy voters, each unhappy in his or her own way.
People like Tina Banks-Bailey, a marketing recruiter in Illinois, who is going with Al Gore. Or David Worker, a Minnesota painting contractor, who is voting for George W. Bush. Or Christina Parlier, working the counter at an Arkansas Burger King, who is opting for Ralph Nader.
But in at least one respect, Banks-Bailey, Worker and Parlier are all voting for the same candidate: the lesser of two evils, as each one put it.
From metropolitan areas such as Seattle to the small Florida city of DeLand, American after American invoked the expression to describe his or her presidential pick. In the week leading up to the election, in conversations on Main streets across America, voters showed little if any exuberance for their candidate. Some days, the country's largest voting bloc appeared to be voters who said they will choose the candidate they tend to dislike the least.
''It's a decision, but it's not something I feel particularly good about,'' said Clayton Luz, 40, a Gore supporter and free-lance writer in the Chicago suburb of Evanston.
Kate Conley, 23, the desk clerk at a DeLand, Fla., hair salon, said much the same, although her choice is Bush. ''Neither one of them is the right one.''
And from Jack Etherton, a retired power lineman in Owatonna, Minn., who had already cast his ballot for Nader: ''I voted for him because I didn't want to vote for the other two.''
These conflicted voters crossed political parties as well as economic and racial categories. From teenagers hanging out on Main Street corners to elderly retirees stopping in at their local Social Security Administration office, from the newly unemployed to newly minted Internet millionaires, their disappointment over the presidential candidates running this year came through loud and often.
For example, Trevor King, a 22-year-old senior majoring in psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, said he is ''probably'' voting for Gore, ''maybe'' for Nader.
''Both Gore and Bush are morons, and I'd like to be able to help the Green Party get matching [federal election] funds'' for the 2004 race, said King, who also said he likes Nader and his party's platform.
Said Jeremy Ferrell, 26, a jeweler who was on DeLand's main thoroughfare the other day, ''Quite simply, I don't like either one. I watched the first [presidential] debate and gave them both a thumbs down. Together they made me decide not to watch any more.''
Each unhappy voter, of course, had his or her own reason for feeling that way. Some Democrats called Gore phony, some Republicans called Bush glib. Liberals griped that Gore is too much the centrist, conservatives complained that Bush is too untested. Even some Naderites who applauded his efforts early on were tagging him a spoiler by Saturday, since he is likely to siphon far more votes from Gore than Bush.
''I hate both [Bush and Gore's] ads; I hate them appearing on Jay Leno and David Letterman,'' said Judy Buskovick, 53, an undecided voter who co-owns Bridge Street Mercantile, an antique mall whose back door opens onto the short commercial section of Owatonna's Main Street. ''I think it's demeaning. I think the country should be able to do better than this.''
Even voters who had made their choice early on and were sticking with it sounded displeased. Rather than celebrate their chosen candidate, they tended to blast his opponent or his opponent's political party.
Bush supporters seemed unable to separate Gore from President Clinton's misdeeds in the Oval Office. In explaining their vote, many of them mentioned that a president is only as good as the people with whom he surrounds himself and that they are confident vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney knows whatever Bush doesn't.
At Hoff's Bar and Lounge in Owatonna, Worker, who is 46, defended his choice of Bush by saying, ''I don't think he's half as stupid as people make him out to be.''
For their part, many Gore voters said they simply find Republican policies intolerable, even if an equal number also said they could barely tolerate Gore. Even some diehard Democrats who would never consider casting a Republican ballot said they understand Gore's unpopularity.
''He's a bookish, smart, I-know-better-than-you guy and maybe he does, but people don't like it,'' said Carolyn Wirkman, 52, a school administrator in Seattle. ''They like the aw-shucks-I-made-a-mistake guy.''
But Bush's easygoing personality hasn't won over undecided Becky Davis, who works behind the counter of a dry cleaner on Main Street in Benton, Ark. Gore's command of minutiae hasn't, either.
Banks-Bailey, the marketing recruiter from Evanston, Ill., said she made her pick at the start. She went with Gore.
''I don't think Gore's real strong, but there's something about Bush I don't like even more,'' she said. ''I guess you could say it's pretty much the lesser of two evils.''
