I started off this thread a year and one half ago with the comment that this election would be about "values," not "issues."
"I've decided to tell everyone this year, 'Don't vote your pocketbooks this election; vote your morals.'"
Voters opting for Bush in two battleground states
Many say the president is 'the lesser of two evils'
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and David L. Greene
Sun National Staff
September 13, 2004
WASHINGTON - In front of the dollar store in downtown Dunbar, W.Va., Shirley Irwin scowls when she says she's going to vote for George W. Bush again.
Irwin, a 64-year-old lifelong Democrat, says things have been "terrible" during the nearly four years that Bush has been in the White House. She's scared that he's "ruined" Medicare and would do the same to Social Security, the programs she depends on to get by.
Irwin believes Bush planned to invade Iraq from the moment he took office and says he bungled the war there.
But she can't bear to vote for Sen. John Kerry, whom she calls a dishonest waffler whose ideas are no better than Bush's.
"I don't like Bush either, but if I've got to choose between the two, count me for Bush," Irwin said. "With Kerry, one minute he would vote for something and the next minute he would change his mind. He talks too much about his war record, and he won't tell you what he really wants to do."
As the race for the presidency heats up in battleground states, Bush and Kerry are working to win over voters like Irwin.
Questioning the war in Iraq and anxious about job losses and soaring health care costs, such voters seem ripe for the picking by Kerry, who accuses Bush of mishandling the Iraq war and worsening economic problems through reckless tax cuts for the wealthy.
But in interviews last week with about 50 voters in Missouri and West Virginia - two crucial states in the presidential race - most seemed to be siding with Bush, who is arguing that he is the right leader for these dangerous times.
Many of these voters, interviewed in swing counties where Bush and Al Gore essentially fought to a draw in 2000, said they regard Kerry as an unprincipled flip-flopper and don't trust him to protect the country in a time of peril around the world. Some also said that they could not support Kerry because they disagree with his positions on cultural and social issues, such as his support for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.
The interviews reinforced the findings in recent opinion polls that show Bush ahead of Kerry among likely voters nationally and in some battleground states, and holding a substantial lead in Missouri. They confirm survey findings that Bush is succeeding in tarnishing Kerry in some voters' minds, while bolstering his own image as the candidate better able to fight terrorism.
The numbers may reflect a temporary "bounce" that Bush received from the Republican convention. But they might also indicate a deeper trend that could spell trouble for Kerry on Election Day.
In 2000, Bush won Missouri by 4 percentage points and West Virginia by 6 points. Gore did well in traditionally Democratic strongholds in both states - the large cities of St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri, and the coal counties of West Virginia. But Bush trounced Gore in largely rural counties where conservative values run deep and Bush's homespun charm caught fire.
It is in the remaining areas of those states - mostly a mix of suburbs and small towns - where Bush and Gore drew practically equal shares of votes. Kerry probably would have to fare as well or better in those areas if he hopes to win in Missouri or West Virginia. Judging from interviews, his chances are not looking good.
Kim Stokes, a 44-year-old Democrat and a geography specialist in Malden, Mo., said Bush is insensitive to the concerns of people like her - a single mother of three.
Bush is "just letting jobs go to other countries," Stokes said. "I don't think Bush truly understands how difficult some of us have it. He has always been a man of privilege."
Yet she won't be voting for Kerry. "He doesn't talk with conviction," she said. "Bush sounds so definite; Kerry sounds like he's trying to say what people want to hear."
Many of those interviewed expressed concerns about Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and said they consider the president an ally of the rich who is not committed to creating good jobs for working-class people. A majority of those interviewed said they voted for Bill Clinton twice, though many supported Bush in 2000.
While Bush and Kerry command a share of staunch backers, a larger proportion said they were shopping for an alternative to the president but were unmoved by his opponent. Kerry has failed to strike a chord with many of these swing voters, most of whom said the Massachusetts Democrat had not talked enough about issues that concern them, focusing too much on his record during the Vietnam War.
It was Kerry's style that bothered people the most, suggesting that the senator may be saddled with a negative public image similar to the one that plagued Gore in 2000, when many voters saw the vice president as boring and stiff.
Those interviewed last week said Kerry came across as rich and affected, and seemed to say merely what he thought people wanted to hear.
Stopped in a parking lot in Herculaneum, Mo., a half-hour south of St. Louis, Tom Nations and his wife explained why they supported Clinton twice and would back his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, if she ever ran for president, but won't vote for Kerry.
"I don't want the nation put in the hands of Kerry," said Nations, 50, a manager for a car dent-removal company. Pressed for why, he paused before adding: "Kerry is just a speechmaking type. He just stands there and is like, 'Four score ... ,' you know? I don't think he's prepared for what the country is going through."
His wife, Karen, a hairdresser, agreed. "I just want to feel safe and protected," she said. "Kerry, it's like he's rehearsed in his speeches and guarded with what he says."
Several people said they would vote for the president as "the lesser of two evils."
"I like [Bush] less than I did then," said E. Keith Dean, 78, a Bush supporter in 2000, as he paid his lunch tab at Jim's Steak and Spaghetti House in Huntington, W.Va.
But the president's criticism of Kerry as an untrustworthy politician seems to have stuck with Dean, a retired architect: "I do think there's some validity to this, 'You can't trust what he says.' [Kerry] just changes from one time to another. I don't have any confidence in him."
In the wooded hills of Braxton County, W.Va., where small farms dot the landscape along the Elk River, many said they considered voting Democratic this time but lack faith in Kerry's ability to handle the country's problems. Gore defeated Bush by just 190 votes here.
Richard Slaughter, 53, of Napier, W.Va., works 15 hours a day - as school bus driver, farmer and storekeeper - to make ends meet. The Democrat says Bush botched the Iraq war and should be devoting the billions of dollars it costs to the needs of Americans. But count him, too, as a Bush backer.
"I just don't think it's a good time to change presidents, with all the trouble we're in," Slaughter said.
Juggling the lunchtime crowd at Lloyd's Restaurant, off Interstate 79 in the hills of central West Virginia, Becky Friend concedes that she's no better off than four years ago, when she voted for Bush. The rising costs of food, gas and health care, she said, have hit her family hard. However, she doesn't blame the president.
"I sort of feel Bush should maybe stay to clean up his own mess," Friend said, wiping the counter. "I haven't really heard what Kerry's about. But I just think, with everything going on, maybe Bush should deal with it. I'm not sure Kerry would know what to do."
Her husband, Ricky, a tire-changer who says Bush lied about the Iraq war and describes him as "good for the rich, not for the poor," offers another reason to support the president: guns.
Hunting is a favorite activity of many West Virginians, and Kerry, said Ricky Friend, is "against guns. He'll take your gun, and I can't have that."
Kerry, a hunter himself, says he favors gun rights, but he has backed gun-control measures, including a federal ban on assault-type weapons that is to expire today.
Some of the voters interviewed in battleground areas expressed strong support for Kerry. But many said they would vote for Kerry not out of enthusiasm for the Democrat, but mainly because they were eager to oust the president.
William T. Watson, a 67-year-old lawyer from Huntington, said he had supported Bush in 2000 but lost faith in the president because of Iraq.
"Kerry hasn't overwhelmed me as a viable candidate," said Watson, a Democrat. "But I figure, might as well give him a chance. We can't deal with four more years of Bush."
Still, in a problematic sign for Kerry, there were many more voters who said that while they were willing to vote for a Democrat, Kerry had not painted an appealing enough portrait of what his administration would look like or what he believes.
Jack King, a 54-year-old Wal-Mart worker, decided just in the past few weeks to back Bush, after years of supporting Democrats, including Clinton and Gore. King, sitting on his pickup in the town square in Ste. Genevieve, Mo., said he "liked Kerry" until the campaign "got down to the nitty-gritty."
With Kerry's campaign message leaving him cold, he intends to back a president who at least shares his stands against abortion and gay marriage.
"I've decided to tell everyone this year, 'Don't vote your pocketbooks this election; vote your morals.'"
Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun |
