One Speech, Two Dozen Voters: Guarded Thumbs-Ups for Kerry
By Dale Russakoff and Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 31, 2004; Page A01
washingtonpost.com
LANCASTER, Pa., July 30 -- Here in heavily Republican central Pennsylvania, Carol Sprecher, a registered Republican who votes like an independent, looked disbelievingly at the television as John F. Kerry finished his acceptance speech. "I'm a little surprised," she said. "I kind of liked him."
Ed House, a Democrat watching Kerry in the suburbs of Portland, Ore., said Kerry seemed a bit stiff but more competent on complex issues than President Bush, whom House supported in 2000. "I would rather have someone remote and competent," he said.
Doug Maldonado, a Coast Guard crewman in a noisy Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Miami, seemed disengaged until Kerry called for equality for women and minorities. That grabbed him. "Why? Because I'm a minority," said Maldonado, a Mexican American.
The reactions weren't rousing, but they're just what the Kerry campaign wanted from one of the most coveted constituencies in America. Sprecher, House and Maldonado are undecided voters in states so closely divided that both Kerry and Bush consider them winnable. With the electorate sharply divided, the small fraction of voters who have yet to pick their candidate -- 6 to 10 percent in most polls -- could swing the election in as many as 18 states, and nationally, analysts say.
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