A passer-by in dowtown Orlando, at the heart of a swing-voting region that will help determine the outcome of elections today and in November. Photo by Mark Silva
by Mark Silva
ORLANDO – On a crisp, sunny day, at a polling place shaded by old oaks, a woman who offers her name only as Joan still is making up her mind as she heads into the brick back hall of the First Unitarian Church to vote.
“I will vote for someone who I truly believe can beat Hillary Clinton,” this registered Republican says. “I want someone I like, obviously. And I like Romney, but I do not want to see the Clintons back in the White House. I think, probably, McCain is the one to beat Clinton.”
Yet this is a decision in the making, this middle-aged voter says on her way in to the polling place for Precinct 306, a precinct that skews urban young and retired old and runs somewhat gay as well, in a peaceful and shady part of Orlando only a mile from downtown where some streets still are cobblestone and $25,000 bungalows of old are fetching big money.
Her daughter-in-law got caught up in the early voting that has been going on here since Jan. 14, at a time when Republican Rudy Giuliani was a bigger contender than he is today, an early vote which the Giuliani campaign courted hard – “At that point in time, they thought Giuliani would do well,” she says of their vote. “They wish they had waited.”
After a quick vote, she stops again in the breezy lot behind the church to talk about that decision made on the way in.
“I went with McCain for that reason – not just that reason,” she says of the electability factor. “I think he is a good man. I was torn.”
This same calculus is playing out today across the Sunshine State, where opinion polls have portrayed a dead-heat between McCain and Mitt Romney among Republican voters and Giuliani’s fortunes have apparently faded. Florida’s voters are weighing Romney, with his promise of righting the economy, against McCain, with his promise of winning in November.Florida Democrats also are turning out en masse today for a contest said to favor Clinton – and many of them are angry about the fact that the delegates they send to the party’s summer convention may not be counted as punishment for Florida holding a January primary. The state party chairman, Karen Thurman, stops by this polling place on a statewide tour today, however, and she believes the party ultimately will let Florida in.
More on that later. Back to the voters:
“I definitely want someone who is going to help the economy,” says Delpha Romero, an older woman. “And I’d definitely like to see our troops come home… Being a senior citizen, naturally I’m thinking about things for seniors. And health care is important. I don’t have a problem with that, but I have people in my family who need health care.”
Her vote?
“I am leaning toward (Barack) Obama,” Romero says.
A young man arrives here voicing irritation “that our delegates got pulled.” He is a Democrat, of course. His name is James Wyndham.
“We’ve got Republicans running this state and our delegates get pulled when they move up the election,” he says with a sigh.
He is joined at this polling place today by Jonathan Gray.
“We’re concerned about the economy,” says Gray, and he has voted for a constitutional amendment on Florida’s ballot today limiting property taxes. “It’ll probably result in higher property taxes,” he suggests.
They have both cast their votes for Clinton today.
“She carries a lot of experience,” Gray says. “When her husband was in office, our economy did very well.”
Obama, he suggests, “lacks experience.”
Carol Morrow, an older woman, turned out to vote for Clinton as well.
“My biggest concern is the economy. It’s been bad for two years,” Morrow says. “I think we’re up the creek. The world hates us.
Why Clinton?
“You know why – a woman can balance a budget,” Morrow says. “Other than her taste in men, which I think is lousy, I want a woman who can balance the budget.”
Kristen Johannesen, a young woman arriving to vote, cannot take part in either party’s primary today because she is an independent and these are closed party primaries. She turned out to vote against the tax amendment.
“I’d be voting for Obama today,” she says, if she had the chance.
Finally, a business-suited man here on his lunch break, a registered Republican who says he would have voted for Clinton today if he could have voted in the Democratic primary.. “The party has left me the last few years,” says Brian Smith. “Especially when you have a president who is willing to put forward amendments to change the Constitution.”
He has cast his ballot today for McCain.
“I just think he’s the one who’s got the most experience,” Smith says.
So, what happens then in November, should the general election pose a contest between McCain and Clinton?
“Tough one,” Smith says.
Tough one indeed.
This is a swing-voting state.
And if the Republican presidential primary is playing out on a suspenseful note this sunny day in Florida, the 2008 presidential election in the state where the presidential vote of 2000 turned on 537 disputed ballots promises to be a lollapalooza.
Thurman, a former congresswoman from Dunnellon who chairs the state Democratic Party, promises that it will be competitive here.
“I think the issues will” make it competitive, Thurman says. “The other thing I see happening here is, look, this is about change. Some would say that McCain is Bush Lite. He stayed with Bush on the war. But I do understand there are those who look at him and say he is independent.
“If your concern is economic,” Thurman says,” and if your concern is about the war, I think our candidates amplify that concern.”
