Voters Resist Labels That Wrap Them Too Tightly

Behind the Polls Are Surprises, Not Assumptions

SAN ANTONIO -- Just days before this week's Texas primary, Morris Merritt stood guard outside the Alamo.

He's an "Alamo Ranger" who keeps an eye on things around the Texas mission, helps tourists take pictures and dispenses historical tidbits. "Stacked the bodies in three piles," he tells a visitor. "Burned 'em."

Merritt is white, 67 years old, wears a cowboy hat and maintains a rather stony expression. Just about any political pundit would take one look and peg him as a conservative.

But he planned to vote for Sen. Barack Obama.

"I think the country needs extreme change," he says.

The presidential race has spawned endless discussion of demographics, focusing in particular on the race, ethnicity, gender, religion and incomes of the electorate, particularly in a Democratic race that features no great ideological differences between the candidates but appears to be heavily influenced by identity politics.

An emerging theme has been the Starbucks-Dunkin' Donuts divide, also known as the wine-track/beer-track split. The conventional wisdom goes that a Prius-driving, cappuccino-sipping voter with decidedly strong opinions about pinot noir vs. merlot will vote for Obama, while the beefy Pabst-chugging guy with the tattoo and a cigarette behind his ear is surely going to vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But labels don't always stick, and demographic truisms don't always survive contact with an actual voter.

Richard Silvas, 56, a cafeteria worker in San Antonio, is part of a Hispanic community that turned out overwhelmingly for Clinton. But Silvas wasn't with her in the primary.

"Believe it or not, I'm a McCain voter. A Republican."

Silvas emphasized that it was not his ethnicity or economic status that decided his vote. He's the son of a World War II veteran, he fought in Vietnam, and he cast his ballot for the one Vietnam veteran running for president.