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An undecided voter searches for someone to believe in at both local presidential campaign headquarters

by Mike Gibson

I don't like George W. Bush. I don't like his protuberant ears or his simpering smile. I don’t like his maddening malaprops or his thick-tongued declamations. And I certainly don't like the way he's run the country, plunging us headlong into the enervating quagmire that is Iraq under flimsy (not to say "ludicrous") pretexts. In fact, the only public figure I can think of right now whom I might dislike as much as George W. Bush is...

John Kerry. I really don't like John Kerry. I don't like his layered pillar of hair or his equine smile. I don't like his dishonest veneer, his constant equivocations, or the fact that his running mate is a glib attorney grown fat on the spoils of malpractice litigations. Don't like the guy. Not a bit.

I can't stand either of the two major party candidates—so much so that I have yet to register this time around. And yet nowadays, the quickest way to start a fight is not to oppose someone's candidate, but rather to tell them you're not going to vote. (When I recently told a local Republican office-holder I wasn't sure for whom I was voting, she looked at me sternly and said, "Well, young man. It's high time you got off the fence.")

Suggesting that one might vote for some third-party candidate almost invariably brings derision and a cry of "wasted ballot." So it follows that, if I want to maintain a shred of self-respect, I have to choose: Bush or Kerry? Kerry or Bush?

Caught between a rock and a hard-head. What's a would-be Independent to do?

My solution, in the instance of the 2004 presidential campaign, was to give both major parties a chance to sway me, to convince me of the rightness of their cause and the fitness of their man. For a few weeks in September, I spent time at both local presidential campaign headquarters, playing fly-on-the-wall and chatting up visitors and volunteers alike.

Whether anyone convinced me of anything is still an open question. My best guess: Probably not. I did draw a few conclusions, although most of them were probably not the conclusions my gracious hosts would have had me reach.

But I also gained new respect for the people who give of their time and energies in the cause of the two men whom I hold in such disregard, and an understanding of why those people are so willing to embrace the two-party system that has presented their flawed like as our only real choices for the highest office in the United States.

As to whom I'm going to vote for now, given my experience of the last few weeks...

In Knoxville, the Kerry campaign has set up shop in the local Democratic Women's Club, a small office near the Union Jack’s beer hall on Northshore Drive near its intersection with Kingston Pike. (Editor’s note: The Kerry campaign also has a satellite office located on Magnolia Avenue.) And when I say small, I mean small. So tiny, in fact, that I can scarcely find a place to stand without getting in somebody's way.

The Demos got started early, the Kerryites having begun using the women's club as their base of operations in May. Theirs is an organization almost exclusively dependent on the efforts of local volunteers. They operate under the direction of a handful of co-equal chairs, volunteers who oversee everything from local voter registration efforts to field operations (which include neighborhood canvassing, rallies and the like).

On an average day, it's impossible to tell which volunteers stand higher in the pecking order; the staff circulates from the cluster of fold-out tables and chairs in the front of the office to the cramped computer area in the rear without prejudice. If it can be said that there is a single individual in charge, that individual would probably be office manager Margie Cuthbertson, whose husband Chuck also serves as coordinator of volunteers.

Chuck is a former deputy city manager for Tallahassee, Fla.; he and Margie decided to "take a year off and do something important" after his career as a public servant in Florida came to an end. Something important turned out to be working for a "regime change" with the Kerry campaign in Knoxville, where the couple has settled in retirement partly due to its proximity to Chuck's native Oak Ridge.

Neither of the Cuthbertsons is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat; they registered Democrat in Tallahassee only because the state of Florida requires its citizens to declare in order vote in the primary. "The best candidates transcend their party," Chuck says. "If you vote for someone because they're a Democrat or a Republican, that's a cop-out."

Most of the traffic that comes through the Kerry office consists of people looking for campaign merchandise: $1 bumper stickers and buttons, $10 and $12 T-shirts, $10 hats, and $18 sportsman's Ts. Yard signs are free, although a $3-per donation is requested from those who can afford to pay.

All of the merchandise moneys go toward continuing operations; unlike their Republican brethren, the Demos receive little or no help from the national campaign. "We don't have the benefit of much 'trickle-down' here," says 80-year-old Mildred Buffler, a retired office manager and self-proclaimed, life-long yellow-dog Democrat.

(When asked for her thoughts on the Bush administration, Buffler's face takes on the aspect of someone who has just bitten into a very old lemon. Then, with a dismissive wave of her hands, she says, "Not even gonna mention it.")

According to the Cutherbertsons, the Kerry Demos have a list of 1,500 actual and potential volunteers for the local Kerry campaign, although Chuck admits that, "There are good volunteers, and then there are better volunteers." There's a smaller, solid core of office regulars who can be found manning the phones, folding T-shirts, and pulling plastic yard signs over wire frames nearly every afternoon.

Margie Cutherbertson admits that a lot of the '04 campaigners are as apt to be disgruntled moderates as hardcore party supporters. Sylvia, a retiree who is busy folding Kerry T-shirts the first day I walk into the Kerry office, announces, without any prompting, "I'm voting for Kerry because the first year I retired, I got $13,000 in social security, and paid $14,000 in taxes."

"We have lots of good, solid old-time people, but also plenty of new people motivated about the immediate future, about changing the direction of the country," Cutherbertson says. "But the mixture is energizing. It's kind of a controlled, energized chaos."

The Kerry office is usually buzzing, in part because it's so small; the walking lanes created by three fold-out tables in the front area are so narrow as to deny passage to more than one person at a time. The back is even more claustrophobic, two old PCs spooned into an area barely big enough for two users to sit back-to-back at the same time.

At one point, I visit the bathroom, which is little bigger than a port-a-john. A fluorescent bulb hesitates, then flickers reluctantly when I flip the light switch; the pipes groan in seeming agony when I push the lever on the toilet. Given the bathroom's smallness, proximity, and lack of insulating features, I worry that some of the less savory operations one must often conduct therein may be discomfitingly audible to the folks outside.

Washing my hands, I overhear a spirited conversation about the recently completed Republican National Convention:

"What does W stand for?" someone riddles. "'Wrong!' But did you hear what that Cheney had to say?"

"Then there's Zell Miller," another voice chimes in, chiding the rogue Democrat who gave a keynote address in support of Bush at the RNC. "The only good thing about him is that he's 72 years old. He says the Democratic Party has left him behind... Well, there's a reason. He's the Strom Thurmond of his generation."

The Bush campaign headquarters in the Long's Drugstore shopping plaza on Kingston Pike is by no means a warehouse. But compared to the Demos' office on Northshore, it is huge—two large rooms, separated not by a cheap divider, but by a real wall. And it's busier, if for no other reason, perhaps, than that it has a real parking lot and can comfortably accommodate a herd of people.

The Republicans didn't open this campaign headquarters until September, allegedly due to the fact that the RNC didn't happen until August. Today it's still undergoing renovation, its darkly painted concrete floors scattered with dust and wood chips, assorted litter, some fold-out tables and several computer terminals.

A couple of older gentlemen on a tall stepladder hang an incongruously ornate light fixture from the industrial metal framework on the ceiling; I overhear someone say the room will be fitted with a false wall to create a lobby, of a sort, near the entrance.

There's a clearer division of Chiefs and Indians here at Bush HQ. At the top of the pyramid are Corey Johns, Knox County coordinator for Bush Cheney Victory 2004, and Gary Drinnen, who coordinates efforts in Knox with those of surrounding counties. Drinnen is a paid staff member, and both men work under the auspices of the state party, which has also been generous in furnishing resources. Today, Johns awaits a delivery of 30 cell phones for office use throughout the remainder of the campaign.

"There's a lot of solidarity on the Republican side," says Johns, a tall, trim redhead who is currently working his way through the University of Tennessee's graduate program in public administration. "Kerry, I don't think has that many supporters; they're just people who are against the president."

Already a veteran of several national and state campaigns at age 25, Johns worked for Bush previously in 2000, and his own loyalties are unwavering. "If you look at history, no other president has been faced with as many obstacles—the recession, the dotcom failures, corporate scandals, the 9/11 tragedy. That we've persevered the way we have is a tremendous testimony to the strength of the leadership President Bush has brought to the office."

Johns is a mild-mannered, well-spoken sort. And even though I don't really believe in the things he's saying, for a second I almost want to, such is the force of his conviction. It's not an uncommon phenomenon at Bush HQ, where the volunteers are not only convinced of their candidate's fitness for the job, but cling determinedly to the notion that he is a man of impeccable character, as well.

As is the case with the Demos' HQ, the Bush office's first function is to act as a clearinghouse for campaign merchandise, the stickers and shirts and yard signs that seem to fly off the front fold-out table at an alarming rate—according to Johns, the Bush people gave out 4,000 yard signs in their first week alone. As is also the case with the Kerry campaign, many of the volunteers spend the better part of their time doing little more than pulling signs over wires.

The most fascinating person I meet on my first afternoon at Bush HQ is a retired union welder and Vietnam veteran from South Knoxville, the sort of delightful crank who is never less than genially entertaining, even when what he's saying seems absurd.

"Just call me John S.," he says. "I don't want to receive a lot of phone calls screaming invective because of what I have to say."

A frank, discursive fellow with a pair of gold-rimmed specs that ride low on his nose, John is chiefly absorbed by matters military, from our current position in Iraq to the overall state of our armed forces to John Kerry's own service in Vietnam. "Kerry is a disgrace," he snarls. "I lump him right in there with Jane Fonda and Michael Moore. He wants to check in with the United Nations to decide our foreign policy. Kerry would just as well give our asses over to the foreigners."

John confides, in a low voice, that he won't put any of the Bush bumper stickers he's picked up today on his Lincoln, but will reserve them instead for his second car, an old pickup. "I want to act on my convictions," he says. "But I don't know how many shopping carts I want bounced off the fender of my Lincoln in Wal-Mart."

At some point in the afternoon, I have to excuse myself to make use of the facilities in the back. The Republicans have two large bathrooms, not just a single cramped unisex model. They're not four-star quality, but they are clean and sweet-smelling, with porcelain polished and white. The lights work. The toilet doesn't groan when I flush.

Further observations and general ramblings recorded over a three-week period:

• Bush supporters are thieves. Or something like that. In any case, the numbers certainly suggest they're more likely to steal opposing yard signs than their Demo counterparts. Over the time I visit the two headquarters, Kerry supporters report having their yard signs stolen or defaced nearly every day (the only respite coming with the arrival of Hurricane Ivan), more than 200 in all. Bush supporters report no such instances at all.

The most egregious violation: one Sequoyah Hills-area resident came out of her home one morning and found that her Kerry-Edwards yard sign had a block-letter "W" carved out of the center.

• Never trust anyone under 30. A legacy of Reagan-era parenting? The visual evidence suggests college students are embracing conservative politics in increasing numbers. Bush HQ sees a never-ending parade of young, fresh faces, college and high school kids alike. "I think Republican students are afraid to come out on campus because they perceive that more of the faculty are Kerry supporters," says 22-year-old Laura Foster, a broadcasting major at Pellissippi State.

Many of the UT kids who come in to volunteer or in search of campaign paraphernalia at the Bush office wear the telltale Greek letters of their fraternities and sororities, traditional bastions of young conservatives. A campus trend: many UT kids come to Bush-Cheney headquarters requesting signs without the wire frames, so they can hang the plastic faces in dorm and frat-house windows.

• Snooty liberals really do prefer living in the Big City. The dichotomy of a liberal urban population versus a more conservative rural/suburban one apparently holds true in East Tennessee. A city mouse, sequestered in my little hovel on Market Square, I had scarcely seen any Bush/Cheney paraphernalia (other than the occasional bumper sticker) until I walked into Bush HQ and watched dozens of visitors crowd around the merch table and plunder its offerings like starving weevils.

"Traditionally, the city is more Democratic-leading," says Johns. He notes that Gore received more votes than Bush in the city during the 2000 election, but that Bush swept the county as a whole. The same phenomenon held true for the Phil Bredesen/Van Hilleary gubernatorial race in 2002.

• Republicans really believe George W. Bush is a stand-up guy. "I know people who know George Bush," Republican volunteer Debbie Love tells me, with the utmost sincerity. "And he really is that tender compassionate sincere person he seems to be."

Indeed, it seems that Bush supporters have an almost desperate need to feel connected to the candidate, perhaps compensating for his shortcomings with an abiding faith in his essential decency. In the case of most Kerry supporters, I got the sense that few harbored any illusions that their candidate had any remotely messianic qualities.

Most telling, I thought, was the fact that the Bush folks had a life-size cardboard cut-out of the president, goofy grin and all, standing near the front door, greeting visitors. The Democrats also had a George Bush cut-out standing in a corner—of the same type—only they had draped it with Kerry-Edwards paraphernalia. Doesn't anyone manufacture a decent life-size Kerry doll?

• Democrats are funnier than Republicans. At least when it comes to writing bumper-sticker copy. The Demos offer gems such as, "Republican't"; "Vote George Bush for Ex-president in 2004"; "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam"; and "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." By comparison, the Republicans can only produce the bland likes of "Vote Bush"; "Tennessee Loves President Bush"; and "Bush President." In the bumper-sticker balloting, it's Kerry by a landslide.

• Democrats are also more spiteful. Many Bushites gave lip service to the notion that they "respected" what their Democratic rivals had to say. A couple of Demos, on the other hand, frankly admitted that they "question the intelligence of anyone who says they're going to vote for George Bush."

Gracious rhetoric is a luxury of the front-runner, I suppose.

• Republicans are winning. And believe me, I don't say this with any relish. But even before I heard pollsters report that Bush had taken a sizable lead over Kerry in Tennessee, while watching the hive-like buzz of Knox Republican Central, I had the feeling that the Bushites were gathering an inexorable momentum, their supporters suddenly streaming out of the hinterlands after a lengthy hibernation.

I feel for the Kerryites, sitting in their Lilliputian headquarters with the bad plumbing and little money, fighting against ever-mounting odds to oust a man they feel is wholly unfit for leadership, and who has steered our country into a senseless and seemingly interminable war. I feel for them, but I wouldn't put my money on them.

After all that, my own mind hasn't changed much. I see more clearly than ever that I could never in good conscience vote for George W. Bush, a man whose actions as leader of this nations fall on a plane bounded by the twin poles of ineptitude and dishonesty.

Nor can I cast a ballot for John Kerry, for the reason that I don't see the wisdom in choosing an alternative that holds such limited hope for improvement over extant conditions.

I'll probably vote with the Greens, or perhaps for the Libertarian—with full understanding that neither will win—in the vain hope of signaling to the major parties that some of us would have them think outside the box of politics-as-usual. Call it a message vote, or a protest vote, or a wasted vote, if you’re so inclined. But it’s the best I can do.

But I do come away from this experience with a little more hope than I had going in. Although nobody I met swayed me as to the rightness of their cause, many—Republicans and Democrats alike—swayed me as to the sincerity of their own faith, whether it be in the enduring goodness of George W. Bush, or the promise of a new day under John Kerry. Naively, maybe I hold out hope that the ennobling good will of decent people can enable our flawed leaders to transcend their own limitations, no matter how egregious their weaknesses might seem.

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