Election Day: Uncommitted

HELENA, Ala. – Turnout was slow in central Alabama for a while, as intermittent rains beat down. By lunchtime, the sun had broken; a steady stream of voters arrived at the new sports complex here. Terry Freeman voted after lunch, for Gingrich. “I like his candor,” he said, “and I’m totally with him on the topic of the gas prices. Romney doesn’t have much candor.” Freeman had also voted for Spencer Bachus, the incumbent congressman being challenged by three Republicans after 60 Minutes (and Andrew Breitbart) hit him for “insider trading” off of information he got from the House Financial Services Committee. The Campaign for Primary Accountability, which dumped money on ads against Ohio incumbents, did the same here. “The ads against him, they’re just dirty politics,” shrugged Freeman.
Bachus also won over Harold Higgins, even though his was casting his presidential ballot for Ron Paul. He met Bachus and liked him. He hadn’t met the presidential candidates, but Paul “says what I like to hear, and he seems down to earth. I wish they asked him more questions in the debates!” Lee Westmoreland, an aspiring radiology technician, went to the polls undecided. She came out undecided, having voted for Uncommitted. “I’m going to go back to work and keep thinking about it!” she laughed. All of the contenders had lost her vote, as had Bachus. She voted for a challenger whose name escaped her. “You don’t want someone to stay in Congress as long as Bachus has,” she said. (Bachus arrived in 1993.)