Politics
Election 2012:McCain voters defecting to Obama are older white males
Even though 38 percent of all voters believe the economy is the election’s most prominent issue, just one-third of the McCain defectors agree. Character matters more.
“Right now if I had to choose it would be Obama, because he’s more personable,” said William Holliday, a 58-year-old retiree from Convis Township, Michigan. “Romney has changed his position so many damn times, you don’t know what he thinks at all. But they’re both liars.”
Holliday said that in general he leans Republican. “I did vote for McCain four years ago in spite of the fact he picked Palin. Because I thought that was a cheap trick he pulled there.” He worries that if Romney is elected he will put “Cheney and Rumsfeld back in there to run the show.”
Jeffrey Baker, 56, a retiree in Strong, Maine, thinks Romney’s refusal to release his taxes disqualifies him. “If you can’t be honest from the start, I don’t want you in the Oval Office,” he said. Romney, whose personal worth has been estimated at roughly US$250 million, has faced criticism from Democrats for not releasing enough years’ worth of his tax returns.
“Four years ago I voted for John McCain because I thought he was more experienced, and I thought we needed someone with some military background,” Baker said. “Mitt Romney – I don’t believe he has the experience that’s needed. He’s a businessman, he knows how to make money. That’s all well and good, but we’ve got people to worry about.”
Baker is unhappy with the entire campaign. “There’s nothing going on. No information, no nothing,” he said. “Everybody says they’re going to do this, they’re going to do that. But nobody says how they’re going to do it.”
