These are uncertain times for Jill Hardek.
An elementary school teacher on leave this year to stay home with her 8-month-old son, Hardek, 34, is keeping a close eye on both the war in Iraq and the presidential campaign.
A sign to the left of the front door at Hardek's brick ranch house on Floyd Avenue in Springfield shows an American flag, a yellow ribbon and the words, "We support our troops." Hardek is steeped in military pride. Her husband is a former Marine. Her father was in the Corps, too, as were her two brothers.
Public school teacher Peter Unger says he's "torn" over which candidate to vote for in the November election. The victor in this year's presidential election Nov. 2 is going to have to win in swing districts much like the precinct in which Unger lives.
(Ryan Anson - For The Washington Post)
|
|
One day Hardek went to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda to visit troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. She brought a stack of handmade get-well cards from children at Jennie Dean Elementary School in Manassas, where for 11 years she taught kindergarten through second grade. She just wanted the soldiers to know that many Americans recognize their sacrifice.
Though she leans toward voting a second time for George W. Bush, Hardek is very concerned about the path on which the Republican president has led the nation.
"This unrest in Iraq is so unsettling," she said, sitting at the kitchen table Sunday while her infant son slept in his crib. "We're trying to help the people in Iraq and Afghanistan get a new government. It's not working. I hate to see on the news every day more soldiers getting killed. I ask why. And I don't know the answer. I don't see any end to it."
But so far, what she has seen of John F. Kerry has not bolstered her confidence in the Democratic challenger. She can't specify exactly what it is, but there is something about Kerry she does not quite understand or trust.
"I don't want to use the word flaky," she said. "But there's something about him that strikes me as not right."
The victor in this year's presidential election Nov. 2 is going to have to win over voters like Hardek to carry swing districts much like the precinct in which Hardek lives.
The 415th precinct of Fairfax County, which surrounds Crestwood Elementary School, is a quintessential swing precinct. Crestwood voters have alternately favored Republicans and Democrats, though lately they have tended to vote Republican by the most narrow of margins in state and local elections.
They went for Bill Clinton in 1996. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore defeated Bush, but only by eight votes. The next year, however, the precinct went for Republican Mark L. Earley for governor over Democrat Mark R. Warner, also by an eight-vote margin. In the 2000 U.S. Senate race, voters favored Republican George Allen over Democrat Charles S. Robb, this time by only seven votes. And in last year's election for chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, voters in the precinct cast 11 more ballots for Republican Mychele B. Brickner than for the Democrat who carried the county, Gerald E. Connolly.
This year, many in the Crestwood precinct who typically vote Republican say the upcoming election is different. Though leaning toward Bush, they are considering voting for the Democrat because of their concerns over the war and the economy. But many say Kerry has so far failed to sway them to his side.
Trying to get a sense of how the precinct will vote is particularly difficult this year, in part because of a gnawing discomfort voters have with both candidates and in part because the demographics are changing so quickly.
A woman in her fifties pulling weeds outside her mother's house said that when she was growing up, almost everyone in the outside-the-Beltway neighborhood was in the military. Now, according to 2000 Census figures, only about 2 percent of the residents are in the armed forces.
