CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE — As the presidential election moves here today, many New Hampshire voters remain undecided about the candidates.
“I am a registered Democrat, and I will vote a Democrat,” Maura Willing said, who is a homemaker. “But I don’t know whom I am going to settle for.”
On the Republican side, there’s also uncertainty for many voters. “There is no strong Republican that everybody likes, and no Democratic that everybody hates,” Rick Estes said, who is an independent voter.
The New Hampshire primaries will be on Jan. 8. The primaries follow the Iowa caucuses. Those caucuses on Thursday night showed these results: Among the Democrats, the top vote-getters were Barack Obama, with John Edwards and Hillary Clinton almost tied for second place. Among the Republicans, the top three were Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
The two elections in Iowa and New Hampshire set the tone for the rest of the nation.
In New Hampshire, many of the undecided voters are not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties. For example, Estes, who is self-employed, has been an undeclared voter all his life. But this time, he is leaning toward the Democrats. He hopes to see the two leading candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, as a team pitted against Republicans in the general election in November.
“One of the best things that could happen to this country would be to have Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket for president and vice president,” he said.
Now, Obama and Clinton are running close to each other in opinion polls. In one poll by a local newspaper in Concord, Obama was leading last month by just one percentage point. The poll found 32 percent of likely Democratic primary voters surveyed backed Obama, 31 percent were with Clinton, and 18 percent were for John Edwards, the third leading Democratic candidate.
But New Hampshire has a sizable population of independent voters. Among those voters, 40 percent are likely to vote for Obama compared to 23 percent for Clinton, according to the survey.
Karren Timm, an independent voter, agrees that the outcome is hard to predict for voters like her. But she is certain to vote for Obama this time. “He is young and enthusiastic,” she said. “I don’t like Hillary at all. So Obama became an obvious choice.”
Anne Edwards, who is a registered Democrat, describe herself as a careful voter who wants to make a sound choice. She puts foreign policy and women’s rights to abortion at the top of her list of issues. She wants a president, she said, who would make them a priority.
“I would like to see a president come in and start reasserting women’s rights,” she said. “I would like to see our next president rebuild us as a sister to other nations when they need assistance.”
Issues in this election are clear for most voters in Concord. Health care, petrol prices and price and border security are some key issues. Unlike past elections, foreign policy is surging as a concern among some voters. They express concern that Iraq has done much damage to the image of their country, and they need a president to repair that. But many are unsure who will be the best choice on foreign policy.
The Bush administration, said Maura Willing, the homemaker who plans to vote for a Democrat, “has really damaged our reputation.” She added, “We shouldn’t have a closed door policy that we are the greatest country on earth and no one else matters. And Clinton could be good at that.”
When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, Jim Steiner, who is running for Congress from New Hampshire, wants to support the Republican front-runner, John McCain.
He cites the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan as an example of the need for better U.S. foreign policy. “The tragic and unfortunate unrest” from the assassination, he said, “really bring home the need for the next president of the United States of America to be sound.” He suggests Republican John McCain as the best qualified.
Mike Garneau, a delivery man, shows concern over the health care issue. Most Americans get their health care through private insurance. But 47 million Americans are without insurance. Garneau for affordable health care and a reduction in war expenses. Though an independent voter, Garneau backs Mitt Romney, a Republican.
“I don’t go by parties,” Garneau said. “But Mitt Romney is an honest guy. I don’t like Clinton because she has the back of our ex-president.”
Byron Carr, a maintenance person, is a registered voter and will vote a Republican. He said that, unlike the Democrats, Republicans are “more conscious of the threat posed by terrorism.”
But some Democrats see their party presenting some exciting choices that will appeal to many voters. “A lot will vote in the Democratic primary,” Anne Edwards, who is carefully weighing her options, said, “because it will be the first opportunity to vote for a woman, an African-American, or a Hispanic — all in the same primary.”
(Trina Joshi, a graduate student in magazine-newspaper-online journalism, is covering the New Hampshire primary for The Indian Express of New Delhi, India.)
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