Suburbanites

Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States, was born in 1913 at this house in Yorba Linda, Calif. (By David Mcnew -- Getty Images)

"I think they ought to wrap him up and send him back to Australia -- Austria," said Bob Ford, correcting himself.

"Well, honey, he has to get along with Maria," said Ford's wife, Kathy, 77, referring to Maria Shriver, a niece of John F. Kennedy. "He has to go home at night."

They were in the main foyer, looking for the model train show in the special exhibits room. Bob Ford, 75, registers Democrat but said he has voted straight Republican all his life. His painting company did most of the malls in the county before he retired.

"All the people I know are pretty conservative," he said. Weary of California's 55 electoral votes going to Democrats, he said, "We need two states -- Northern California and Southern California."

Kathy Ford liked Rudolph W. Giuliani, but with the former New York mayor out of the race, she is leaning toward Mitt Romney, even though "he isn't really striking a chord with people."

"My daughter's voting for Hillary Clinton," she announced.

"Wait till I get through with her," Bob Ford said.

At the Nixon library, they talk about Clinton the way liberals talked about Nixon.

"I'm a true Orange County Republican, and I'm an admirer of Ronald Reagan, and truthfully I will vote for whoever we nominate to beat Hillary," Caroline Schilling said. "I think she's the most frightening human being. Her quest for power is just astonishing."

Schilling, 65, counts a daughter of Barry Goldwater among her closest friends. She came to the Nixon museum Friday afternoon after selling her flower shop in the morning. "And don't even get me started on the state of California and being a small businesswoman," she said, rolling her eyes.

Rex Johnson, a classmate visiting from Florida, smiled sympathetically. They had wandered past the Lincoln Sitting Room. Still ahead was the president's old armored limousine, the gun Elvis Presley presented in the Oval Office and, to the right and straight ahead, empty space once occupied by a Watergate exhibit that implied the scandal that ended Nixon's presidency had been a sly Democratic coup.

Installed by Nixon's friends, it was dismantled when responsibility for the museum passed to the National Archives, which is preparing a fact-based replacement. ("This isn't North Korea," the new director said.)

"I'll have to do McCain," Schilling said. "I just loved Rudy, and then I started listening to Mitt and all he was saying and how with his past he seemed so capable of running a country.

"But I'll have to do what I have to do. McCain will be the eventual nominee. I have a firm belief that if you don't vote, it's a vote for the other side."

"You got that right, baby," Johnson said.