I have not decided who I am voting for yet. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I have decided on multiple occasions only to become undecided again. While some will see me as fickle, or worse, others may be in the same boat.

I am also continuing to think about what difference any of the candidates can make on the economy, and based on these musings, where to invest. My current belief is that none of them will have a profound impact on our economy.

There are no financial wizards among them. Here is the shocker though: I like all three candidates, or at least can find some good in each of them. Each of them is a fighter, and I believe each one of them brings certain skill sets to the job. There are also things about each candidate that are inescapably negative. Clinton has so much baggage, Zsa Zsa Gabor would be jealous. Obama does not have the experience and he has a degree of arrogance (right sweetie); McCain is an old stick-in-the-mud who, as a long-time senator, has spent more hours with lobbyists than almost anybody, though he is pretending otherwise.

Where does this leave me from an investment perspective? My first choice, for stability with moderate growth and dividends, remains the defense sector. I wrote Defense sector rolls over S&P 500 for 8th straight year a while back and I still think that it is the most secure. Here's why:

A) None of the candidates will want to appear soft on defense when we are at war, and all three have made threatening remarks in some country's direction to make sure the electorate knows that.

B) The War in Afghanistan and Iraq rages on, and even the most optimist view is that a draw-down will take years.

C) Even if all war ceased immediately, the upgrading and replenishment of the hardware will cost billions of dollars and most of the defense contractors have that in their backlogs now. Chasing Value: General Dynamics & Raytheon -- The defense does not rest

A front page story on Edwards backing Obama in today's Financial Times had an interesting unattributed comment near the end. In it, a source suggested that a deal could be in the works to make Hillary Clinton give up her quest for the Holy Grail -- err Democratic nomination.

The final paragraph in the print edition (this paragraph actually didn't make it into the online edition of the story) quotes one of senator Clinton's Wall Street backers as saying that the "'ultimate peace pact' with Obama could involve some sort of support from him to pay off her debts, which are estimated at $20m or more."

I am not sure how Obama would help Clinton pay off her campaign debts. Would he divert money he's raised from his supporters to Clinton? I don't think Obama supporters would be too happy about that. Or would he start a new round of fund raising with the explicit understanding that the money would go to Clinton? It's no surprise really that someone from Wall Street would be suggesting such a deal. I don't know whether this kind of thing has been done before but my hunch is that it has.

Gloria Steinem's comments over the weekend saying that Republican presidential front-runner John McCain's POW status is overrated is just plain bizarre.

She claimed that if Clinton's experience as First Lady were taken seriously in relation to her White House bid, people might "finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss's job and take it over."

Ms. Steinem, Sen. McCain has sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee for more than 20 years, does that give him any experience, or knowledge? Perhaps more than being a secretary to Bill. Isn't that a bit demeaning for Gloria to say? If she is right, why do we always see CEOs being replaced by other senior people in the organization? Like the CFO, VP of sales. Why don't they hand the job to the CEO's assistant?

Steinem raised McCain's Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton.

Hillary Clinton must win by gargantuan margins in next week's primaries in Ohio and Texas or else her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination will be over, according to her husband former President Bill Clinton and other political pundits. The odds of that happening are daunting.

Polls show that Clinton, who has lost ten straight contests to Obama, is losing ground to the Illinois senator in Ohio and that she is virtually tied in Texas. Over the past few months, Clinton's support has eroded among almost every demographic group and there is no sign that is going to change.

These days, Clinton exudes all of the charm of a middle school disciplinarian. Her recent outburst that Obama should be "ashamed" of himself for sending out misleading advertising mailers is a case in point. Factcheck.org, which argued that she has some valid points, argued that Clinton is no slouch in stretching the truth in her advertisements either:

Remember in 2004 when Sean Combs Puff Daddy P-Diddy Diddy helped champion the "Vote or Die" campaign? Yeah, me neither. But for decades, attempts to get the younger generation to the polls have been critical parts of our major elections. I still remember watching Bill Clinton on MTV in the summer of 1992, lamenting the fact that I was only 18 and unable to vote.

A new President will be elected in about 50 weeks, and Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC Networks is planning on using new media to help educate the social-networking crowd about candidates and news along the campaign trail. The network has inked a deal with Facebook -- in which Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) owns a small stake -- to provide news reports and video for the nearly 60 million members of the website. Facebook members will also be able to participate in polls and debates.

ABC and Facebook have announced plans to jointly sponsor Democratic and Republican Presidential debates in New Hampshire on January 5, three days ahead of the critical primary election in the Granite State. Dan Rose, VP of business development for Facebook, told The New York Times that "Through this partnership, we want to extend the dialogue both before and after the debate."

The agreement was not of a financial nature. ABC News will have exposure on an increasingly popular site; Facebook gets free, fresh content for its political section.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

A number of news reports in the last few weeks have drawn attention to the involvement of private equity firms in health care companies, particularly nursing homes. Now comes news that Congress wants to look into the situation. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, a Democrat, and Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa have asked Congress to investigate the situation.

The source of the growing concern about care at for-profit nursing homes owned by private equity firms is an article in The New York Times published in September. The title of the article sums up the situation pretty well: "At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing." It seems that when private equity gets involved in providing nursing care, more money goes toward making investors comfortable and less toward the elderly folks who actually live in the facilities.

I doubt that too many readers will find this claim surprising. Private equity funds search for return on investment. If a couple thousand old people live a little less comfortably, or die a little sooner -- well, too bad. Profits must be made, and the higher the better. What may come as a surprise, though, is the size of this market. For example, the Carlyle Group plans to buy Manor Care Inc. (NYSE: HCR), the largest U.S. nursing home owner, for $4.9 billion. That's an awful lot of bedpans.

And it turns out that private equity firms are ideally suited to run these operations -- assuming that what you want is the highest possible profit rather than, say, excellent care for the elderly. Private equity excels at wringing out costs, and so has no trouble firing many of those expensive nurses who take care of the patients. Private equity also loves to create debt and ownership structures so complex that no one can figure out who actually owns a business -- thus shielding the owners from lawsuits. And the nursing home business deals with a powerless group of consumers, many of whom are subsidized by government payments. No wonder private equity firms are jumping into the sector! Just hope that your elderly relatives stay healthy and strong.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are liquidating their stock portfolio, , according to the New York Times. Of their eight biggest holdings -- you might consider bidding for two: Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX) and The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD).

The reason for their decision to sell the stocks is to avoid a conflict of interest. This spring, a government directive also ordered her, as a presidential candidate, to dissolve her blind trust and disclose all of her assets to the public. The move will cost the couple "substantial amounts" in capital gains taxes and force them to forgo the potentially higher returns from these stocks.

But do these stocks really have that much potential? I don't know since I can't predict the future. Of the eight stocks of which the Clintons own between $250,001 and $500,000, I think they should be happy to sell one, I am on the fence about five and you should consider buying shares of two. Which are which?

How odd that a retailer, even the biggest one ever, is becoming an issue in the upcoming presidential elections. But that's the role Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is playing recently. As my colleague Zac Bissonnette noted earlier this past week, Senator Hillary Clinton's tenure as a board member for the Bentonville company is coming back to bite her. Indeed, one of the posts that has drawn the most comments in months was a partial transcript with commentary I posted on Clinton's response to how Wal-Mart affects the U.S.

Senator Clinton was the youngest member (and the only female) member of Wal-Mart's board of directors from 1986-1982. Her tenure there was reportedly filled with advocating personal causes, rather than stirring the politically correct pot. A sticky point, however, was her reported inactivity on behalf of labor causes, traditionally a Democratic Party issue. On the other hand, this makes it more difficult for her Republican critics to find fault. After all, doesn't Wal-Mart stand for the all-American values of bottom-line capitalism and privatization?

She's not so sure about that anymore. Clinton recently returned a $5,000 campaign donation the company sent her way in 2005, which suggests her campaign wants to try and distance itself as much as possible from the controversial giant retailer. Clinton has proved deft at dodging political bullets in the past. Let's wait and see how she dances around this one.