A modern presidential election season would not be complete without the claim that women – not men – decide elections. Claims made earlier this year were brushed off by analysts who noted mass movements of men, especially away from the Democratic Party, and the absence of driving feminist issues. NASCAR dads almost replaced soccer moms but didn't quite represent the most seriously disenfranchised bloc of eligible male voters. This sort of miss – lack of attention and understanding of men's issues – may explain why the benefit to Republicans has been short-lived.

Swanee Hunt of the leftist political pressure group Women & Public Policy Program and Democrat pollster Celinda Lake ganged up on Fox News Wednesday in an attempt to renew the urban myth. Surveys show the race for the presidency is close. Candidates need to attract undecided voters. It follows that if the larger number of undecided voters are female, a candidate who panders to women will have an advantage.

Through a short maze of statistical reasoning, the two conjured up the vision that the election will be decided by – wait for it – single mothers. First claiming single women generally as the target (there are more single women than single mothers) a different picture emerged as they listed top political priorities that mostly involved increases in entitlements related to children. They then claimed 70 percent of undecided voters are women and one third of single women under 45 years of age are mothers. To top it off, they said 61 percent of eligible women voters voted in 2000. So there! Single mothers will decide the election.

The math doesn't work out, even if the numbers are correct, and they muffed the task of feigning impartiality. The short list of priorities the two claimed for "undecided women" includes a demand that President Bush apologize for the Iraq War. Uh – ladies – I think that group has already made up their collective mind. It might do the Democrats more harm than good to characterize John-John Kerry-Edwards as undecided women. But I don't know. Maybe they do have some kind of point there. Those two can't seem to make up their minds either.

Roger F. Gay