The Face of the Middle

Forget the “battleground states.” Look at the battleground voters. Glenn is a battleground voter.

My friend from New York state is 50, Jewish, and comfortable, if not well off. Born into a New York Jewish family that voted straight Democrat forever, Glenn became an independent when he went to law school, and even moved rightward after he started working for the state of New York and witnessed what he characterized as overbloated government. So Ronald Reagan's message of smaller government appealed to him greatly. He also lives in a high-tax state and has experienced firsthand the Medicare bureaucracy, having had to deal with his seriously ill mother. So don't say “socialized medicine” in his presence.

Glenn and his wife, Sandra, write tax legislation, so they say they know how tax laws aren't meant to work and how they penalize the ordinary working American. However, Glenn and Sandra aren't ordinary working Americans. Their household income easily surpasses six figures and they recently bought a vacation home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Most ordinary working Americans can't do that, tax cut or no tax cut. He believes in corporate responsibility, but also that the free-market system, if left relatively in peace, will improve everyone's standard of living.

Glenn, 50, is a social moderate. He thinks the nation was more moral and ethical when he was growing up than it is now. He doesn't especially believe in marriages for gays, but doesn't have anything against civil unions either. He's not especially religious (he and his family are Jewish) and doesn't want the line between religion and state blurred. But he doesn't have a problem with a moment of silence in public schools, either.

On foreign policy, Glenn believes that based on the available intelligence, the congressional vote to invade Iraq was correct when it was taken. “If I were in Congress or the President, and CIA Director George Tenet told me it was a slam dunk that a madman like Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, I would have no trouble assuming that he would be in league with the kind of terrorists that blew up the World Trade Center,” Glenn says. But he now thinks that, based on what information has surfaced, that the invasion was a mistake. He's unsure of what needs to be done next, however.

Glenn voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, George W. Bush in 1988 and 1992, Bill Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. He says there's no way he will vote for Georgedick Bushcheney this year. My friend is one of the smartest, most commonsense people I know. I'm going to work on him to tell all his friends how he feels. If you know someone like Glenn, do the same. These battleground voters will make the difference in November.

Contact Ira Lacher here.