Ambivalence rules Florida polls
Voters sit on fence in prized swing state that could decide tight U.S. election
ALONG FLORIDA’S INTERSTATE 4 CORRIDOR— When they talk about jobs along this teeming stretch of Middle Florida that could well decide November’s election, the conversation isn’t about quantity so much as quality.
Work may be returning at a glacial pace to these coveted political fence-sitters along Interstate 4, the Daytona-to-Tampa asphalt ribbon that once was the pride of the booming Sun Belt. But at 8.8 per cent unemployment, Florida is still hurting more that most.
And as the I-4 crawls back from the double-whammy of the Great Recession and the bursting of the country’s most profound real estate bubble, many complain of paycheques too paltry for comfort.
“It’s slow. Not horrible — but still pretty grim for people my age,” says John Nystrom, 25, who pours coffee at the Creative Arts Café in the tiny town of Lake Helen, one county inland from Daytona Beach.
“And it’s the same for my mom. She was like everyone else: looking for a $17-an-hour job to replace the one she lost. Instead, she found work at Office Depot for $7 an hour. It’s better than nothing. But not by much.”
Nystrom voted for Barack Obama in 2008. And he’s nearly ready to do it again, but this time as “the lesser of two evils.” (He uses a colourful expletive to describe Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.)
“Obama hasn’t lived up to the hype. But he didn’t create these problems, he inherited them. So I’m probably going to give him another chance,” Nystrom said.
Democrats and Republicans alike recognize Florida, with its 29 electoral votes, as the biggest prize of the eight to 10 swing states likely to determine the battle for the presidency.
And much of the battle is already fixed along I-4, where a water cannon of political advertising is already flowing full blast, much to the chagrin of the undecided.
“You’ve got retirees and tourists, a growing Hispanic population, plus all the rest of us who are relative newcomers from the north,” said Pat Bremer, a transplant from Chicago. “That makes for a mixed-up electorate — and too many TV ads. I just tune them out.
“But I read the paper every day and I’m voting for Romney. Obama had his chance and the economy’s no better. I’m ready to change back.”
Bremer and family said goodbye to Chicago five years ago when her husband’s aerospace job was “outsourced to Singapore.” He was among the lucky few, snapped up by Lockheed Martin to work at the firm’s production facility near Orlando.
Bremer, for her part, found employment behind the counter at a nearby Harley Davidson dealership in Orlando, where the tourist flow to all things Disney keeps the motors running.
“I recognize that Obama is more international than Romney. But that doesn’t help us,” she said. “Frustration over the economy is going to decide things for this part of Florida.”
The unpredictable mix along the I-4 is as weird and wonderful a slice of American life as one is likely to find. Between the beach glitz of Daytona and the tourist meccas of Orlando, you will find such unlikely hamlets as Cassadaga, a “spiritualist community” founded in 1894.
This is where the American Bible Belt gives way to something far more, well, Zen. Local legend — and a longtime annoyance for Cassadaga’s 300 residents — holds that the “Devil’s Armchair” can be seen at midnight in the village cemetery. Local college students made such a mess of the headstones during outings in search of the ghostly apparition that town authorities ordered it closed at 7 p.m. nightly, with police patrols monitoring for trespassers. “It’s nonsense. Just one of those foolish urban myths,” says John Nicholas, 53, who speaks with some degree of spiritual authority. Nicholas makes ends meet as Father Christopher, purveyor of a psychic hotline specializing in conveying the emotions of people’s pets, past and present. But mediums are voters, too. And Nicholas, whom the Toronto Star encountered returning to Cassadaga from his daily 16-kilometre bike ride, was strikingly prescient in his political critique. “I have the sense that Romney is going to end up buying this election. When you see the heft of the funds he is raising, you wonder whether Obama can compete,” Nicholas said. “Myself, I don’t really like either one. It doesn’t feel like they have anything concrete to offer. Our situation is what it is in this part of Florida and nothing I have seen from the campaigns excites me. I will vote — but like many of us, I haven’t made up my mind yet.” That ambivalence extends to Lakeland, a struggling city between Orlando and Tampa that is home to citrus, cattle and phosphate mining and the world’s largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, thanks to the architect’s efforts to create a “true American campus” in the 1930s and ’40s. Largely untouched by the boom years that so enlarged the cities that flank it, Lakeland is nevertheless struggling now, said car dealer Ben Smith, 71, a lifelong resident. “So many people got wiped out in the housing crash, or had their 401K retirement nest eggs crushed,” said Smith. “So when we talk politics, it comes with bitterness and worry about what’s ahead.” Smith is settling on Romney, his wife remains “with Obama.” But there appears to be no great enthusiasm in the discussion, despite the fact that Romney and his fellow Republicans are poised to gather just down the road in Tampa on Monday for the four-day Republican National Convention. Only when the discussion turns to political advertising does Smith’s blood begin to boil. “These Super PACs, this system of limitless financing, we’ve got to do away with them, period,” he said. “It isn’t just that they play games with every important question and leave everyone confused. There is so much money involved now; you can’t even run for local office if you don’t have any. It’s coming to the point where regular people can’t afford to be involved in our own system.”