'Electability' carries it for Kerry
MANCHESTER, N.H.
GENE PIECUCH, 74, a retired public utility chemist, said he had gone back and forth between John Kerry and Howard Dean. Dean became burnt toast in Piecuch's eyes with the now infamous Iowa speech.
"I liked the fact that Dean was a professional man, a doctor, and I liked some of his views," Piecuch said yesterday after voting in the New Hampshire primary at the Jewett Street School. "But I was watching Dean's speech, and I said to myself, `What the hell happened to him?' In all my years of watching candidates, I never saw anyone snap like that. I worried about him having that much anger in the White House." Piecuch ended up voting for Kerry. One week after Kerry's Iowa exhumation, Democratic voters stamped Kerry with the label of Mr. Electability, at least in his backyard, by giving Kerry nearly 40 percent of their votes to Dean's approximately 25 percent.
Piecuch's decision was particularly telling because his top issue is health care, which was supposed to belong to Dean. Piecuch's own health plan from his former job is so good that his wife's knee replacement surgery only cost him $21.
But he said: "I see the elderly people at the pharmacy when the pharmacist says this drug is going to cost $100. It makes me so angry. The elderly are paying $100 for drugs when we're spending $87 billion for Iraq. We've got to start leaving some of those billions of dollars at home." Sharon Chabot, 50, who does not have health insurance because she is unemployed, voted for Kerry after considering John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. "I really liked Edwards, but Kerry brings the whole package on issues and his service in Vietnam. And when that kid passed out" -- she was referring to a Kerry worker who collapsed Monday at an event -- "and Kerry went to his aid, you couldn't have paid someone to make Kerry look any more human."
Dean retained enough core support to be a clear second, but given his fading context, the actual headline, to borrow from a political bumper sticker, was: Dated Dean, Married Kerry. No undecided voter in 2 1/2 hours of interviews at this school picked Dean at the last minute. Dean defections may have helped keep John Edwards and Wesley Clark thin hopes alive. "Dean reminded me of Khrushchev slamming the table," said Pamela Gallagher, a retired defense assembly line worker who picked Edwards.
Subtly telling was that undecideds who did not pick Kerry still had something kind to say about the Massachusetts senator. Emily LaBonte, an employment counselor who picked Edwards over Kerry, said: "Kerry has the global experience around the world, and when I've seen him, he's very calm and thoughtful. But he was still a little too distant for me. I see a lot of pain every day with dislocated workers and welfare clients. Edwards and his life story just seemed closer to the working class."
In an interesting possible glimpse into the future, many Kerry voters, without prompting, talked glowingly of a Kerry-Edwards, North-South ticket. Few non-Dean voters were mulling over the fate of Dean.
"I was taken with Dean in the summer," said a social worker who did not want to give her name. In the end she chose Kerry after she saw a poll suggesting that Kerry has the best chance to beat Bush.
"I liked Dean's stand on the economy and how old people and children get health care in Vermont," she said. "I never really liked Kerry that much, but we've got to get a Democrat in the White House. We've lost so much respect in the world. It's so bad I would vote for Mickey Mouse." Freda Hawkinson, 44, who voted for Kerry, said: "We've got to get somebody in the White House who can negotiate with the Congress and get their votes. Dean was too abrasive."
The electability factor brought John and Kaye Underwood to the polls to vote for Kerry. John, 66, a retired high school guidance counselor, voted for President Bush in 2000 and the senior George Bush in 1992. Kaye, 62, a former nurse, voted for Gore in 2000 but voted for the senior Bush in 1992.
"If Bush spent on education, health care, Medicare, and prescription drugs what he spends on one or two days in Iraq, it would be different," John said. "I'm a Republican looking for a change of pace."
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
