Alex Webb

MIAMI ON THE VERGE

“We are from Haiti, from Guatemala, from Nicaragua, here for the American Dream,” said Marleine Bastien, the director of Fann Ayisen Non Miyami (Haitian Women of Miami), speaking in Lemon City, a part of Little Haiti in northeastern Miami. “Every 100 years someone comes around. Obama came to change the course of history,” added Bastien, speaking to early voters lined up in front of the neighborhood public library. “We’re going to walk to the polls. We’re going to walk tall. We’re going to vote for change … . You need to be the change,” said Bastien. It was a few days before the election, and from the length of the line that stretched down the entire block, Marlene Bastien – and presumably others – had done their job well. Many Miamians were voting early in Lemon City.

The early voting lines outside both the North Miami Public Library and the North Dade Regional Library were even longer. At the latter, the voting had taken on a festive note, as music blared and a group of women, dressed in identical “Just Vote” gray T-shirts, danced to a thunderous bass beat. People were hawking Obama T-shirts, Obama hats, and even Obama sandals festooned with tiny heads of the Democratic candidate, two pairs of which one vendor claimed Spike Lee had bought earlier from her. One of the vendor’s children was dressed as a fireman for Halloween. (Later that evening I would visit the Lincoln Road Halloween celebration in the more-upscale Miami Beach where a group of Obama supporters donned McCain and Palin masks to mock the Republican candidates.)

Here in the Sunshine State, I seemed to be a very long way – and not just geographically – from that other swing state, Ohio, where I had listened to a litany of political and economic complaints, with their fair share of sarcasm and dark humor. By contrast, Miami sported an almost fiesta-like atmosphere, which was interwoven with political rhetoric. This part of southern Florida reminded me a bit of elections that I’d witnessed before in the Caribbean – in Haiti, in Jamaica and in the Dominican Republic. A friend of mine in Miami had an amusing explanation: “It’s the palm trees.”

Ultimately Miamian’s concerns, however, were not dissimilar to those of Ohioans. At the San Miguel barbershop in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, home to many new Latin and Caribbean immigrants, the Dominican owner told me business was terrible. When did it start to go bad, I asked. “Eight years ago,” he said. “I told everyone that when Bush got into office it would change – and it did. This place used to be filled with people,” he said, adding that he – and many in the neighborhood – were voting for Obama.

“Hey, you! Are you with a paper?” a middle-aged Latina asked me early Wednesday morning. “Why does the news media always support what’s-his-name?” she asked, hesitating for a moment, then turning to her husband for help with the candidate’s name. Suddenly – and clearly relieved – she blurted out: “You know, Obama.” She looked at me again. “Except, of course, you, because you’re here. This country with Obama is going to go down,” she added, turning her thumb towards the ground.

I was standing in a lot at Everglades Lumber in Miami, just west of Little Havana, at a small, though boisterous, early morning McCain rally. In this crowd of probably less than a thousand people, the air was filled with anti-Obama invectives: “He’s a socialist!  How can a Cuban vote for him?” “I never liked Kennedy, and he’s sure no Kennedy….” The crowd was sprinkled with “Pepe el Plomero” signs (“Joe the Plumber” in Spanish) and one “Cachita la Plomera” sign (perhaps roughly translated as “Josephine the Plumber”).

Later that day I drove to Sunrise, Florida, on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, to attend an Obama rally at the Bank Atlantic Center, home of the Florida Panthers, a professional hockey team. I arrived an hour early and was struck by how long the lines were already. At 4:30 the doors opened, and by 6:30, the crowd, comprised of people of all ages and colors, had swelled to nearly 15,000 people. It felt at times more like a rock concert or a sports event than a political rally, except that the crowd, although excited and animated, exuded an unmistakable sense of calm.  

Obama arrived to wild cheering. During his speech, his occasional pauses were interrupted by “Will you marry me?” and other affectionate outbursts from the crowd. I saw tears in some people’s eyes when he spoke of bridging the great political divide or of healing the country’s wounds.

So what to make of this day? Recent polls suggest the race is getting tighter, which seems to contradict much of what I saw at the two rallies today. Is this simply because some people who will go to the polls never show up at rallies? Or is there some other more complicated reason? The more I see and hear and read in this unpredictable Sunshine State, the less I know for sure what will happen here come November 4.

Little did I realize when I walked into Youngstown’s Club Deja Vu to watch the Presidential debate that I’d return during the daylight hours just a few mornings later. For it turns out that this funky red-walled night club, just across Market Street from the Board of Elections, is not just a local watering hole, but also serves as a kind of community political center.

The Deja Vu was the destination of a Saturday morning caravan of painted cars – called “Obamamobiles” – that began at the democratic campaign office in Boardman, Ohio, just south of Youngstown. At 11:30 in the morning, after the arrival of the caravan, Deja Vu’s staff fired up the barbeque on the back patio and soon began serving hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread. The dancing inside was briefly interrupted by some uncertainty as to whether it was the “Obama shuffle” or the “Obama hustle” that was being performed. (I have to admit, I never figured out which was which.)

The Obamamobile caravan, however, wasn’t the only political activity around. Not far away, on a street corner in Boardman, some supporters of David Aey (a local Democratic candidate for sheriff) gathered, one of of them dressed as a gigantic pencil, since Aey was running a write-in campaign. Elsewhere families competed in a pumpkin carving contest in Boardman Park, and in nearby Austintown, a fall festival, which included a classic car show, took over the parking lot outside a local community church.

Under the slanting rays of a waning Ohio sun, the hubbub of the election seemed far away. 

“By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.

“You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.”"
– John McCain, in the second Presidential debate held October 7.

“Whether Senator McCain meant it that way or not, if you are a person of color, and someone trots out the ‘That one’ remark, you instantly take it as racist. I know that I did, and was deeply offended by it.”
– Don Hammonds, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Obama won.”
– American people, based on a USA Today/Gallup poll of 735 people who saw the debate. The respondents said that Obama “did the better job” by 56% to the 23% who said McCain did better.