ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120065
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporter's Notebook
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN
Celebrating yet? It's been a week since you've had to see a political ad on television, read one in your newspaper, or hear it on the radio.
It won't last long though. Spring municipal elections will be here quicker than you want to realize. And soon talk will begin of who's going to run for the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors next fall.
For the last several elections, my assignment has been to scout out precincts, spot kindly looking people and beg them to tell me who they voted for and why. Not only that, but we have to get them to agree to have their picture taken too.
Now, many people don't like to tell us who they pulled the lever for. And many more will tell you their opinion, then become a shrinking violet when you want their name or their picture to go with it.
We nosy reporters, though, will try to cajole you into it, just to please our political editor who wants a good cross section of quotes and photos to help make our page look good the next day.
So photographer Gene Dalton and I dutifully bounced from Radford to Dublin to Christiansburg on Election Day in 31/2 hours to get the eight to 10 quotes we were told we must have. It took lots of cajoling. Of smiling, begging, making small talk. Three were used. Here's what some of the others had to say:
Matthew and Jennifer Lester of Radford both voted for President Clinton and for Mark Warner. The young married couple said they supported Clinton's efforts on welfare reform. And Rush Limbaugh would say, "See, I told you so" but Jennifer couldn't resist this comment: "I like [Clinton]. He's cute."
Both also went for Mark Warner, although Matthew admits Jennifer convinced him to vote for the younger Warner, that he wasn't that informed about that race. Jennifer said the commercials that swayed her "were talking about that [John Warner] just lost touch; that he had been in there so long. The other guy just seems to have a lot better ideas."
George Beaver, a Realtor voting in Dublin, was the lone voice for Dole among the people we talked with.
"I think our current president probably has done more damage to the Constitution that anybody's done in years," Beaver said. He said he was specifically referring to blanket searches of Chicago government housing projects.
He called Dole an honest man. "Let's face it. As long as he's been a senator and he's not a millionaire? That's rare."
Beaver voted for Rep. Rick Boucher and for U.S. Sen. John Warner. He hints he may have flipped a coin on the Warners. "A lot of people with conservative leanings have trepidation about voting for John."
As for Boucher? "He's good, middle of the road. He's done this area a good job."
Election Day brings a special atmosphere to the precincts that are used as schools, churches, armories, fire halls or whatever for the rest of the year. The chatter outside is from party activists and high school volunteers hawking sample ballots. Some places pull voters in with bake sales and dinners. This year, probably because I read an article encouraging it, I particularly noticed families coming out together to vote: husbands and wives together, or a parent with a child, teaching them a responsibility they will have when they reach adulthood.
The headlines proclaimed voter apathy at an all-time high, but you couldn't see that at the polls we went to. More than 700 people had voted at the Belle Heth precinct by 11:45 a.m. At the Christiansburg Armory, 1,450 had voted by about 2 p.m. Even with three separate alphabetized queues, some people found themselves waiting in lines 12 to 20 deep.
I heard little complaining though.
"I just think it's a beautiful thing. If I didn't vote it'd be a shame," said one woman. She didn't want to tell me who she voted for, though.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB