An important advantage that new and relatively unknown candidates enjoy is flexibility, the luxury of being able to tailor positions to adjust to the political field.
Still others talked of how unhappy they were with both men, when what they really seemed to be saying was that they were prepared to hold out, hoping the candidates would tailor positions just for them.
One new officer, Eunice, 26, said she had been rejected for jobs at offices and stores, with few managers willing to take a chance or tailor positions to her deafness.
The work is intense, Ms. Yarzab said, but unlike some chains, which ask pharmacists to work 10 to 12 hours a day, having her own store allows her to tailor the position somewhat to her needs.
"We are sorry that we are unable to tailor the position on the terms you have proposed," he wrote, adding that the museum interpreted her questions about schedules, wages and start dates as a rejection of the job offer.
Anti-abortion activists, meanwhile, assert that Mr. Gore has tailored his position on the issue to suit his political needs: sympathetic to their cause when he was representing conservative Tennesseans, becoming ever more liberal on the issue as he moved to national campaigns.
"They were tailoring this position for this one outcome," Waszak said.
She has been -- again, incrementally -- tailoring her position papers towards at least limited support for some of Bernie's issues.
But for the most part Mr. Kerry, who voted against the first Persian Gulf war, tailored his positions on this one to his presidential ambitions.
Mr. Cheney startled Mr. Edwards when he suggested that both Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry had tailored their positions on the war in Iraq -- in particular, by voting against an $87 billion appropriation that included funding for United States troops in Iraq -- in response to the initial power of the candidacy of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.
