Printable Version

Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Sunday, September 28, 2008

Joe Orso: Talking presidential politics at Oktoberfest

After Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama debated the economy and the role of the U.S. in the world on Friday night, Desiree Soper danced.

She’d watched most of the presidential debate, which touched on everything from the tense state of the economy to nuclear weapons in Iran, but missed part of it due to more immediate concerns: She needed to put her children, 5 and 11/2, to bed.

After the debate, she and her housemate danced outside to The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” then sat on their front porch at Mississippi and Sixth streets just before a friend and I walked up to chat about the debate.

A McCain supporter, Soper, 21, said the economy is the most important issue in this election.

“There’s no decent-paying jobs,” she said, and noted she has been looking for work since February. “Here I am a mother of two. I don’t want to be on welfare the rest of my life.”

Soper moved to La Crosse from Anchorage, Alaska, nine years ago.

She said she likes McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, because she’s a “real woman who is a mom,” and didn’t like how Obama addressed McCain as “John” during the debate.

After talking to Soper, we made our way to the barricaded streets where people flooded in and out of bars in downtown La Crosse.

We were curious to find out whether many of the Oktoberfest-goers had watched the debate, and what was on people’s minds five weeks before the presidential election.

Not surprisingly, we found a fair mix of McCain and Obama supporters (with McCain slightly edging Obama), and some, like Adam Phillips, still undecided.

“I’m not going to vote because either way I vote,” said Phillips, 24, sitting on a barstool at the Casino, “it’s going to be the same thing,”

“Which is what?” I asked.

“Not good for us,” he said.

Of the few we talked to who had seen the debate, none had been swayed to switch their allegiance.

Andrew Barnes, 23, an Obama supporter, found Obama to speak more factually than McCain.

Danielle Hanson, 22, still supports McCain, although she doesn’t like to admit that because most people her age, she said, seem to support Obama.

Most we talked to hadn’t seen the debate, though.

“This is a national holiday,” said Jenna Steinhoff, 23, who had traveled to Oktoberfest from St. Paul, Minn. “The debate shouldn’t be this weekend.”

As we made our way toward Chapter II after midnight, we heard a beer bottle smash on the street outside.

Less than 10 minutes after we arrived, a scuffle broke out behind us.

But despite the rough-housing, we found an insightful conversation there between two friends.

Gabe Gerken, an Obama supporter, works as a microbiologist in the hygienic lab at the University of Iowa.

Now 34, Gerken became a single mother at 19 years old, and said if it wasn’t for community support, she wouldn’t have made it.

Her friend, Randy Ferry, a conservative Republican, said he believes in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

“Democrats seem to say everybody gets the same thing,” said Ferry, 40. “Republicans say everybody has the same opportunity to have the same thing.”

But Gerken pointed out how welfare helped her to independence.

“As a taxpayer I don’t mind paying taxes if they’re going to the public good,” she said. “You take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves, to a certain point.”

After their own debate at Chapter II, Ferry and Gerken hugged and kissed, and my friend and I called it a night.