Panhandle counties more conservative than many other parts of state.
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Ledger Tallahassee Bureau
CHIPLEY | Barack Obama won't find too many supporters at the bar at the American Veterans Post 7 in this small town in the middle of Florida's Panhandle.
'This country would go down the tubes if they put him in there,' said Ron Noss, 64, a Vietnam veteran and the canteen manager for the local veterans' organization. 'We need a veteran in there.'
Although Noss used a racial epithet when first asked about the presidential campaign, he and other bar patrons insisted race wasn't the issue.
'We have nothing against a black man running for president,' said a man sitting at the bar who declined to identify himself. 'I think that's great if it's the right black man.'
The exchange at the veterans' bar in Washington County represents the political challenges that Obama faces in the Florida Panhandle, a sparsely populated region that is much more conservative and less diverse than many other parts of Florida.
Democratic presidential candidates, like Obama, generally don't run well in the Panhandle outside of the Democratic-leaning Tallahassee area. In 2004, John Kerry won only three of the 16 Panhandle counties that stretch from Jefferson County, east of Tallahassee, to Escambia, Florida's most western county.
President George W. Bush carried more than 71 percent of the vote in Washington County.
A Mason-Dixon poll conducted in mid-September showed Republican John McCain leading Obama in North Florida by an 18 percent margin.
A number of factors tilt the Panhandle toward more conservative candidates in national elections. The region has a half-dozen military bases — including the Naval Air Station at Pensacola and Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach — and a large population of former veterans.
The Panhandle residents more often than not reflect stronger 'Old South' values than the rest of the state. Here sentiments run strong for religion, gun rights and anti-abortion efforts.
But that's not to say the Panhandle is monolithic and unchanging. While there are smaller rural counties like Liberty, which is Florida's least-populated county, there has been a growth boom along the coast in places like Panama City, Destin and the coastal communities between Fort Walton Beach and Pensacola.
The Panhandle has Florida's only black-majority county — Gadsden.
And while it has small towns with funky names like Two Egg and Sopchoppy, the Panhandle also boasts tonier addresses in places like Seaside, an upscale beachfront community in Walton County.
As Florida heads toward another presidential election, Panhandle voters share a common trait with the rest of the state. They are very worried about the national economy.
'The economy is on the minds of a lot of people,' said Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock, a conservative Democrat who is running for re-election. 'I don't know who they are going to blame.'
Haddock has a good sense of the voters because he uses a time-honored campaign technique in the Panhandle — going door to door.
'I'm seeing a lot of people out of jobs,' he said. 'They're suffering and hurting right now.'
In Apalachicola, Walter Ward, 50, who has spent some 35 years in the seafood industry, said he is holding most of his five shrimp boats in port because of the high cost of diesel fuel.
'It's slow with the fuel prices,' he said.
Ward said he is likely to vote for McCain 'because of Sarah Palin,' McCain's running mate.
'I think she would make a better president than both of them,' he said.
In Port St. Joe, Irene Acree, owner of Cooper's Cut & Style hair salon, said she now rides her bike to work partly for health reasons and partly because of the high price of gas.
She said she will vote for McCain because he has successfully faced adversity in his lifetime, including his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
'He's stepped up to the plate in times that have needed him,' she said.
Acree, 50, is skeptical of Obama, although she said he is 'probably a good fellow.'
'I want change,' she said. 'But I don't know what that guy is going to change. I do know he believes in socialized medicine.'
Eating breakfast at Cassandra's Place in downtown Panama City, Bob Dallas said the economic slowdown has brought his work as a mortgage broker 'almost to a halt,' saying it is difficult to obtain appraisals in a chaotic real estate market.
Dallas, a veteran who was wounded in a mortar attack in Vietnam, said he has registered to vote for the first time since he returned from the war and he is supporting Obama.
'I'm going to vote for Obama and I've been a diehard Republican for most of my life,' the 66-year-old said. 'I know if we get McCain in, it's going to be more of the same — it's not going to change anything.'
Another breakfast diner, Linda Long, 60, said she likes McCain and Palin enough to vote for a Republican for the first time, having supported Kerry in the last election. With a son in the U.S. Army who has done two tours in Iraq, she said McCain's military background and experience will help bring the war to an end.
'I think the boys have to come home,' she said.
At the Holmes County fair in Bonifay, Bob Jones, the county's Republican chairman, joked he had not seen anyone all week handing out campaign literature in the Obama booth at the fair.
'I think John McCain and Sarah Palin will do very, very good here,' he said.
Sitting on a bench in the fairgrounds with his daughter, Martin Andrews of Ponce de Leon said he was voting for McCain.
'I just feel like he would be a better leader right now,' he said.
Calling the economy a 'pretty bad mess,' Andrews, 56, who works at the Vortex Springs diving resort, said the nation's leaders need to do something about the sky-high fuel costs, saying it is hurting all parts of the local economy from truck drivers to farmers.
'People are going to start getting hungry pretty soon if something doesn't change,' he said.
Heading into the Christ Town Bargain Center in Marianna, William Walters, 70, a retired state worker, said he was likely to vote for Obama.
His wife, Deanne, who can't vote because she is a British citizen, said the couple support Obama because he is more likely to change the policies of the Bush administration, including bringing the Iraq war to an end.
Deanne Walters also said Obama could face opposition in the Panhandle because of his race.
'It's still very prejudiced,' she said. 'But it's undercover now. Nobody says much openly. But that will go against him a lot.'
At the breakfast diner in Panama City, one man seemed to reflect the angry mood of an electorate buffeted by an economic meltdown.
The man, who declined to identify himself, said he wasn't going to vote for either McCain or Obama.
'Neither one is worth a -----,' he said. 'The economy stinks. Everything stinks.'
