The dot-com companies that rise on a good deal may crash the moment the roving, unattached free agent consumer finds a better deal. And in my home, I watch the talking heads on a television that once had three channels and now has 100. When one panelist annoys me and another goes to a commercial, I click and desert without a second thought. James Carville writes about ''Stickin,''' about loyalty as a political virtue. But a free agent citizenry is used to having more choices and making fewer compromises.
Free agents travel light, with little more than a mouse.
They are inclined to search the Web of candidates, attracted to one and then the other. The biography of McCain, the experience of Gore, the intellect of Bradley, the promise of Bush. They look at candidates sometimes as if presidential politics were a computer game of Dress Up Barbie and they should be able to create the perfect president out of all the available parts. But they move on at the first disappointment. Point and click.