What Will Happen if Obama Wins Again?

Republican voters in Florida answer the question that terrifies them most.

ORLANDO, Fla.—“We cannot survive four more years of this!” moaned Kelly Clem-Rickon. She was one of Newt Gingrich’s Hillsborough County co-chairs, assigned to keep a Tampa crowd cheering and cheerful while the candidate made his delayed way over to give a speech. “We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1,000 years of darkness!”

It was a perfect quote—a direct line from Ronald Reagan, an allusion to the Third Reich and the Revelation to John. The problem: It didn’t apply to Newt Gingrich. Florida Republicans chose Mitt Romney on Tuesday because they’re terrified of what would happen if Barack Obama won again, and the only way they saw to stop that was to choose the most “electable” candidate. In exit polling, 45 percent of Florida Republicans admitted that they were voting for the candidate with the best chance to beat Obama; only one-third as many said they were voting for a “true conservative.” Romney won 58 percent of that first group and just 11 percent of the second.

Why are Republicans obsessed with electability? They fear a second Barack Obama term the way Hogwarts students fear He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Over a few days in Florida, I asked Republicans to tell me what specifically they feared would happen if Obama got four more years in the White House. Read their responses in the slide show below.

David Weigel asked Republican voters in Florida the question that terrifies them most: “What will happen if Obama wins again?” Here’s a selection of the responses.

Rudy Rodriguez Martinez, Orlando. Golf trainer and candidate for Congress. Gingrich voter.

“The only thing that worries me is the socialization of the free enterprise system. The destruction of capitalism. Becoming part of the one-world order, dictated by China, with people who depend on the government to give them everything.”

David Weigel.
Mary Gaulden, Land O’ Lakes. Retiree. Gingrich voter.

“I just think about the Keystone pipeline, that he would let it go to Russia and not the United States. Doesn’t that tell you what Obama thinks of us? I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about it. I get upset.”

David Weigel.
Justin Spinella, Orlando. Gym employee testing to become a personal trainer. Romney voter.

“We’ll just keep going on the same path. It’s not like it’s getting any better month by month or year by year. If you’re, like, an employer, for every extra employee you take in, you pay an extra tax. I mean, for example, my dad owns a business down in Dade County. If he goes to hire somebody new he has to pay unemployment benefits regardless. Even if he’s only there a week, he has to play unemployment benefits, man.”

David Weigel.
Durham Barnes, Winter Park. Physician. Romney voter.

“I’d be worried about more sliding into socialism. I’d expect more crony capitalism. Government participation in industry at taxpayers’ expense. GM is an example. And then, trying to foster Solyndra-type, green energy-type companies, investments with no hope of return. And taxing the producers to support those who pay no taxes. I think he’d continue interpreting the Constitution as he sees fit, in essence throwing up a challenge to Congress to do something about it, which is highly unlikely as I see it.”

David Weigel.
Barbara Church, Celebration. Retiree. Gingrich voter.

“If Obamacare continues, I think that the health care system that we’ve known to be efficient in this country will become more like Canada and England, and become very inefficient. There will be long waits to get health care. All of our investments, and the country of our values will change. I think we’ll become more of a socialist state, and instead of people being self-sufficient and having jobs and earning their ways in the world, there will be more dependency and hand-outs—what a dear friend of mine calls womb-to-tomb care.”

David Weigel.
Clark Spurlock, Celebration. Pizza man. Paul voter.

“I think if Obama’s re-elected, whatever happens, it’ll be the same if Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney is elected. It’s all the same shit. They’re all answering to the same people. The same financial interests that bought Obama’s campaign are buying this one. The big corporations, the big financial firms, they back all the candidates and they get what they want. And, of course, they own the media, so they smear Ron Paul every chance they get.”

David Weigel.
Jeanie Parzygnat and Tina Altic, Winter Park. Retirees. Gingrich voters.

Related Article: What Will Happen if Obama Wins Again?

J: “This country’s gonna go down faster than it already has.”

T: “We’d become a socialist country, definitely, because Obama is backed by George Soros, all the way.”

J: “Read about Agenda 21. It’s a 40-year plan to take this country down. We’re at the end of the plan right now. All they had left to do was get into the schools and get into the media. And they’re definitely into the schools. For the first time, they have a textbook that’s totally online. That means they can put whatever they want in them, and the kids won’t learn anything. That’s the start of everything.”

David Weigel.