I have friends that have voted for a Democratic President since I have known them. I meet one friend in 1991 and he has been big in the Democratic party in the area for over 20 years. Usually we do not talk about elections, except to give each other a hard time. I talked to him today and he said he was not going to vote for Obama. I could not believe it. I talked with a great friend of my wife's and I that is a single black female raising her two kids by herself, (because he husband has recently made some huge mistakes) and she said there was no way she was voting for Obama. Anybody else hearing this from their Democratic Friends? Who are the pollsters reaching that are voting for Obama bin Laden?

 

I actually have two buddies that would have voted for Hillary. Why, I have no idea. Since Obama won the democrat ticket...both of them are voting for McCain. Kinda weird IMO. I vote ideology, the "R's" tend to be more in line with what I believe than the "D's"... Why someone would switch parties confuses me.

 

My grandmother has never voted....EVER. She asked my dad a month or so back to take her to register to vote. She told him by not voting she would be voting for Obama, so she will be voting for the first time. My step mother is a staunch Democrat and had every intention of voting for Hillary Clinton, but told me the other day she would not vote for Obama. She did not go as far as to say she would vote for McCain, but she made it clear she would not check that box for Obama!

 

It's nothing new, there always people that vote across party lines every election, there will be plenty of Republicans voting Obama and Democrats voting McCain. It's actually a good thing, there are too many that simply vote their party.

 

While I can't say that it won't happen anywhere in the country, I don't see many Rs crossing the aisle this time. In fact I have yet to hear anyone that considers themselves a Rep say that they would vote for Obama. On the contrary I have met quite a few life long Ds that either plan on doing something they swore they would never do and vote for a Rep or just plan on staying home.

 

I have been a registered Republican my entire adult life (even got two of those "Critical Issue Surveys" from the RNC this year. lol), and have always voted Republican, including for GW in 2000 (I was out of the country in 2004), but this year I'll be voting for Obama. I used to love McCain back in 2000, but in the last 2 years, he became someone I no longer recognized. I spent a great deal of time researching where each of them stood on the issues, and what was at the heart of their plans, and Obama was ahead almost every time. There are a handful of issues I have with Obama, but I have many more with McCain. With Obama, my taxes, as well as those of just about everyone I know, will go down. This isn't true with McCain. My health insurance premiums, along with those for everyone I know, will go down with Obama, and it won't result in socialized healthcare, like some would have me believe. With McCain, my friends that receive benefits through their job would actually see a tax increase. Those are both very important to me, as lowering taxes has always been a fundamental goal of Republicans.

The majority of my friends plan to vote along party lines, but to be honest, most of them rely on cable news for their political information, and don't know the truth about much of either candidates plans.

I have a few friends that are younger than me, who have always voted Republican but who say they're voting for Obama this time. I also have a few friends that are older than me, that have said they'll never vote for Obama, although I can't think of any of them that would have voted for a Democrat anyway. When pressed for a reason why they'd never vote for Obama, they always say the same thing: he's a Muslim, and he's black. And the people that are saying this are fine, upstanding people in the community. They aren't trailer trash, or out of work high school drop outs. In fact, of the three men that have told me that, all are retired from their lifelong professions, and two of them are working part time jobs just to stay busy and make some extra spending cash.

Anyway, that's been my experience as far as who plans to vote for who.

 

It's happening a lot of places, just like any other election.