What Pennsylvania Voters Are Saying

(Via RealClearPolitics.)

For 40 of his 65 years, ever since he first registered, Martin Greenblatt has been voting Republican in this Philadelphia suburb. Through much of the past winter, the retired teacher considered himself a supporter of Rudy Giuliani. But when the former New York mayor quit the race without a single primary victory, Greenblatt made a radical decision.

He reregistered as a Democrat so he could vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in next Tuesday’s primary. His vote will be counted along with thousands of others to be cast in the Philadelphia suburbs, traditionally the votes that anoint the winner in Pennsylvania contests.

In a day of interviewing outside the library in this Montgomery County community just before Wednesday’s Democratic TV debate in Philadelphia, Greenblatt’s story was just one of many describing the strange journeys they have taken to their current positions — and the disquiet some of them feel about the votes they are about to cast.

While Clinton had more supporters in these interviews than Obama (or Republican John McCain), it is obvious that all the campaign time the candidates have lavished on Pennsylvania since Ohio and Texas voted for Clinton and McCain on March 4 has fueled more doubts than enthusiasm.

Greenblatt is typical. Asked about McCain, this longtime Republican said, “I don’t like his (Iraq) war policy. I supported the war at the beginning, but I’m increasingly disillusioned with it. McCain just seems to want to keep it going.”

Obama has little appeal to Greenblatt. “He hasn’t had the experience,” Greenblatt said, in a comment I heard many times from other voters. “Two years in the Senate, and one of them he spent running for president. And I’m not happy with Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright,” Obama’s controversial pastor.

Full story here.