Like most Americans, they don't always vote. Two are young first-time voters who were too busy and too disinterested four years ago. Half say they're not certain that they will vote this year. They are the true swing voters who do not so much swing between candidates as between voting and not voting. And like most Americans, they had no intention of watching the Democratic and Republican conventions. Or at least they didn't until The Washington Post invited them six weeks ago to participate in a focus group to watch both Bush and Kerry's acceptance speeches.
Some clearly didn't like what they saw.
"It's crap," said Bob Lapinsky, 55, who recently retired from the Postal Service, after Bush spoke. Both candidates were merely "rock stars performing. . . . That is all it is. The Democratic convention was the same way. They are just performing. And they know the songs we want to hear, because they have a lot of people working for them. So they perform those songs. And in the end, you don't know who to vote for."
"It is more rah-rah than it is substantive," Miraszek said. "It's a big lovefest. I think it's useless. . . . It is a lot of hot air. And when the hot air dissipates, you're back on the ground and you have to realize there's nothing."
"This is a performance," Philip Harris, 25, a greeter at the new Super Wal-Mart, concluded after listening to both Kerry and Bush. "Won't change a thing," he said, and it doesn't "mean a thing to me."
To Vote or Not to Vote
Crime drove Harris to politics, or at least to voting.
Harris did not vote four years ago. He didn't even bother to register. "I wasn't into politics. I knew I should vote. I just didn't get around to ever doing it," said Harris, a large man who laughs easily and often.
Then in February he was working out at the local YMCA when a thief broke into his locker and stole his wallet. Harris, who does not drive, went to get a replacement identification card. "When I applied, they asked me if I wanted to vote and I said yeah, so they registered me."
Harris has always lived in east Erie, the hardscrabble side of town . Working-class blacks mix with working-class whites along its narrow streets lined with two-story wood or brick houses built a century or more ago and showing their age. New arrivals from Bosnia and the Middle East add their own flavors to a city already heavily seasoned by generations of Italian and Polish immigrants.
He is living with his grandmother until he can find an affordable apartment for himself and his expanding family. He and his longtime girlfriend have one son, 8, and another child on the way. Since graduating from East Erie High School, Harris bounced from one minimum-wage, no-benefits job to another until he was hired last month as a greeter at the new Super Wal-Mart, one of four Wal-Marts in greater Erie. His position is presumably one of the 144,000 new jobs that the federal government said were created in August by the on-again, off-gain economic recovery.
Harris feels lucky to get the job, which comes with health benefits. Good jobs are scarce in Erie and getting scarcer. The old manufacturing factories that once provided lifetime employment are mostly shuttered. New businesses are moving in, but what is lost seems to Harris to be larger than what is gained. "Every time something moves in, something closes and we lose jobs -- we lose the good jobs; the new ones that come are on the bottom of the pole."
He doesn't blame Bush for the bad economy; his toughest days occurred under President Clinton. Besides, Clinton had other problems. "He was supposed to uphold the country. But he lied. If he can lie about that, what else can he lie about?"
Harris is African American. His family is solidly Democratic. But he is not. He remains undecided after hearing both Bush and Kerry, though he allows that he may be leaning toward the Democrat.
Last week he came home to find his grandmother watching Bush on the news. Harris mentioned he hadn't made up his mind between Bush and Kerry.
