THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611010709
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: DECISION '96
SOURCE: By TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 131 lines
Ignore the polls. Vote.
That's Flora Goldman's urgent message as Election Day approaches.
``I'm terribly afraid that people who might vote for Clinton think they don't need to, and people who might vote for Dole think their vote is wasted,'' Goldman said, because the polls try to tell voters who's going to win.
``That really disturbs me,'' the Norfolk resident said.
Polls lump Americans together into blocks of percentages. They disregard the many paths people take toward deciding on a candidate, based on experience, family history, religion, their vision of the nation, and countless other factors.
Character is paramount to some. A single issue is the key to another voter's focus. Still others wrap up their choices in a dozen different questions they want answered.
Rarely, very rarely, does their decision turn on campaign strategy, the stuff of most discussions in the press and among pundits and politicians.
Consider the choices that a few South Hampton Roads voters see:
Howard McDonald, a small business owner in Virginia Beach, is still torn about the presidential election. He considers foreign policy vital in the global economy.
He doesn't see how you can talk only about, say, jobs in the United States without talking about trade relations and the economies of countries that affect those jobs.
``I believe in the world community,'' McDonald said. ``We can't do anything in this economy that doesn't eventually impact on others. These issues are linked and you don't want to separate them. They're inseparably linked.''
McDonald took part in a citizens' discussion group on foreign policy in Virginia Beach last year.
Yet Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, he said, are virtually ignoring that international web of political and economic issues in the campaign. He's frustrated that he hasn't heard much from them or the media about it, and is worried that he might choose a candidate who wouldn't act responsibly.
``(Secretary of State) Warren Christopher said in a speech somewhere that if Clinton were re-elected the U.S. would get more involved around the world,'' McDonald said. ``Now, the candidates aren't talking about that. I didn't see it in your paper. But that's important.''
Similarly, Roger Visser of Virginia Beach sees important strains of thought that don't get discussed enough or in the right way. Visser said, ``I'm a staunch fundamentalist conservative, and not afraid to admit that.
``I run around with a bumper sticker that says, `Character counts.' The founding fathers would have a fit if they saw what's going on today. The morality and character we have throughout society is not appropriate at all.''
Visser sees that wrapped up in a national tension between what people want and what the country needs. While Americans will say they want smaller government, they're willing to take whatever the government wants to give them, he said. So for him, responsibility, self-discipline and smaller government go hand in hand.
He sees a clear choice between Clinton and Dole. Clinton has questionable morality and believes in bigger government, he said, while Dole believes in less government and greater morality.
``Morality'' is important to Goldman, but it has a very different meaning to her. While she's not overly concerned with the candidates' private lives, she thinks standards of morality should be applied fairly. Dole left his first wife, Goldman said, the wife who had helped him pull through his war injuries, and he spent very little time with his daughter. That bothers her.
Goldman, the daughter of Austrian and Polish immigrants, also feels Dole and conservatives in general are immoral in using immigration and other issues to divide people.
``I can't stand this playing one race off against another, this hatred of one race against another,'' she said. ``Immigrants are getting a lousy rap. We conveniently forget that we stole a third of the United States from Mexico.''
Trust, like morality, is a recurring theme with voters, but it takes different forms. Ellis Hinnant-Will, a Virginia Beach artist, instinctively distrusts Dole based on his speeches.
``He's talking in this code that he does, he's such an insider,'' she said. ``I think he's a bright man. But I think he's such an insider that if he were president we would never know what was going on.''
Hinnant-Will needs to feel a connection with a candidate, particularly for such an important office, and she feels it with Clinton more than Dole.
It also disturbed her that Dole appeared to be changing his colors, such as his switch in philosophy from being against ``supply-side'' economics to suddenly advocating it.
Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York City, used to ask people, ``How'm I doing?'' That's the question Hinnant-Will addresses.
``In general, I feel we are in a better position,'' Hinnant-Will said. ``People seem to be happier. They seem to be less tense.''
Some voters noted there are issues the candidates aren't talking about, such as the apparently growing income gap, or racial tensions in America. But they were understanding.
``Those are volatile issues,'' said Elsie Barnes, dean of social sciences at Norfolk State University. ``Those are issues you have difficulty debating unemotionally. Most politicians would rather stay away from them and I don't blame them. It's a lose-lose situation.''
Barnes said Dole and Clinton aren't as far apart as they would like voters to think, but meaningful distinctions exist.
Several people said the candidates are probably addressing what they think - or what the polls say - people care about. McDonald said that if politicians truly believe Americans aren't interested in these issues, they're wrong.
``I think people are concerned even if they're silent about it,'' he said. ``For instance, the only place our daughters and sons would be placed in harm's way is through foreign policy. So I think they do care.''
Often, when talking about how they'll choose a president, people return to what's been called our ``civil religion,'' the founders' beliefs and the documents they wrote, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Those words are very much in people's minds as they decide on their vote.
Goldman pointed out the Constitution provides for immigrants' children to be citizens, and she doesn't want to tamper with that.
Hinnant-Will discussed the difference between Congress and the presidency, as defined in the Constitution and in practice since then, and wondered how well Dole would adjust.
Visser feels his thinking about government and morality is in line with what the founders intended.
They and many others approach Election Day very seriously, and think about it in ways far more complicated than pollsters assume. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Visser
Hinnant-Will
Barnes
McDonald
KEYWORDS: ELECTION VIRGINIA U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA
CONGRESSIONAL RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES ISSUES
PUBLIC JOURNALISM VOTING by CNB