It all comes down to Tuesday night when voters will watch in anticipation to see which nominee - Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama - will be chosen as the 44th president of the United States.
Nancy Boston, chairman of the Republican Party of Bell County, has seen an increase in interest.
“We had a lot of traffic,” she said of Temple’s GOP headquarters. “They’re really interested in the issues, and the country and the things that affect daily life.”
Arthur Resa, Democratic Party chair, said there is a more varied cross-section of people than there were during the presidential election of 2004.
“We have a lot of youth,” he said. “A lot of minorities, older people, people who never voted or voted Republican.”
Each party leader spoke to their party’s strengths.
Resa said he knows of several Republicans who are voting Democrat this year because they want to send a message that they weren’t happy with the past administration.
While Boston said Republicans are pleased with Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate and believes the amount of time the media has spent on Palin’s new wardrobe is nonessential.
“I imagine that anyone else serving in Congress - let’s take (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi, she probably wears $200 to $300 shoes and designer suits,” she said. “I see no problem with $150,000 spent on her wardrobe because everybody else in office are millionaires and they can afford to do that.”
Boston describes Palin as “an average person” and believes that the clothing allows her to be in the same arena as other candidates.
Clothes aside, Resa believes the negative commercials run by the McCain campaign are hurting the Republican cause.
“We see it as desperation. Those ads antagonize the Democrats more,” he said. “It encourages Democrats to take friends, relatives, neighbors to the polls.”
And, he said, people are worried about the world’s view of America, which is why America needs a Democrat in the White House.
Democrats are better diplomats than Republicans and will talk to countries before going to war with them, he said.
“Democrats tend to be more open to change and listen to people while the Republicans don’t,” Resa said. “(Republicans) decisions are made inside a box. Democrats live in a world that’s round - they listen outside the box.”
It’s not the global situation, finances or war that should decide an election, Boston said.
“I don’t think there’s anything that should be put on the back shelf.”
No matter what the party leaders say, it’s the people at the polls who decide what issues are important. They cast their votes for the candidates who they believe will best answer their concerns.
Pat Cole and Doris Eckermann both voted Republican during early voting last week.
“I figured we needed to have some people in there who knew what they were doing,” Ms. Cole said. “You wouldn’t want a nurse taking care of you if they never did it before, would you?”
Mrs. Eckermann agrees with her.
“(McCain) spent a long time and went through hell in the military,” Mrs. Eckermann said. “My husband went through the same thing.”
Both Mrs. Eckermann and Ms. Cole believe health care is important, but they don’t want to help people who don’t help themselves. They believe that under Obama’s proposal, people who work hard would pay for free health care for people who don’t want to work.
Stacie Ortiz liked the way things were in Clinton’s administration with no war and no deficit. She thinks that the country is in better shape when a Democrat is in office rather than a Republican.
“We’re hoping that if we go back to the Democrats, it’ll go back to the way it was,” she said.
Linda Williams wants the war in Iraq to end. The issue hits close to home for her since her son is in the service and has been overseas three times. She believes Obama will bring the troops home and help the economy by not sending jobs overseas.
It’s going to go down the wire, Boston said.
“It will be a close election, but the American people will speak,” she said. “We need to remember that when it’s all over we’re all Americans and we need to come back and do what’s best for our country.”
Resa has high expectations of a normally conservative county.
“I really feel we’ll turn this county blue.”
@temple-telegram.com
