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HACKENSACK, N.J. (MCT) — At Teaneck, N.J.’s Classic Residence, lifestyle coordinator Michele Tierney can’t make it through the day without someone who once voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt asking, “Michele, what are the latest tracking polls?”
The 210 residents — nearly all in their 80s and 90s — are so wrapped up in the election that they’ve asked for political movies to be piped into their apartments. Last week it was “Wag the Dog.”
“It is obsessive,” Dr. Ruth Weinberger, 93, said of presidential politics.
Fifteen miles away, at the Holland Christian Home in North Haledon, N.J., Mary Planten also is closely following the election.
“To my regret,” the 102-year-old said.
“There’s too much poison being thrown back and forth,” she said of the campaigns.
It’s enough to make her click over to the Food Network.
If past elections are a guide, the oldest Americans will be turning out at the polls in force Tuesday. Seniors as a group are the most reliable voters, and so-called “super seniors” even more so.
According to census data provided by AARP, 72.9 percent of Americans 85 and older were registered to vote in 2004, the last presidential election. Of that group, 57.4 percent voted.
How faithful are seniors to the ballot box?
“We did a study of elected officials under 35 and invited 50 of them to discuss their experiences in depth,” said Ingrid Reed, director of the New Jersey Project at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. “These young officials said they always first went to senior citizen groups because they could rely on older people, not their own cohorts, to show up at the polls.”
The Record in Hackensack, N.J., spoke with two groups of voters over the age of 90 about the choice between Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. The nine seniors — seven of whom lived through the Great Depression in the United States — all named the fragile economy Issue No. 1. And all said they vote with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in mind.
Planten, one of four centenarians at the Holland Christian Home, can’t escape Decision ’08.
“I got an e-mail from a friend, asking everyone to pray for McCain,” she said.
She did so, and then realized her mistake.
“The prayer should have been for the best man to get in,” she said.
Planten doesn’t know who the best man is. Call her undecided.
“I really don’t think either one is up to the job,” she said. “Take, for instance, FDR. He had a good family background, a good education, a good mind. He could handle things international. These people running now don’t impress me that way.”
But Planten is in the minority at the 150-resident Holland Christian Home. The place is McCain Country.
Edith Floyd, 92, already cast an absentee ballot for McCain, whom she called tested and experienced. Henrietta Borst, 90, will vote for McCain but said it’s “a good thing” that Obama’s campaign has inspired so many young people to register. Simon Hartog, 98, also plans to vote for the Republican, although he wonders whether McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, “is qualified to assume the chair of the president.”
Hartog will carry a load of concerns to the polling place.
“These are days of uncertainty — understand what I’m saying? How long is it going to take for this country to eradicate the debt we have today? ... How many fathers have lost their jobs because of downsizing?”
Floyd worries, too — about the 72-year-old McCain’s health and the African-American Obama’s safety.
“It’s very possible that people who are against black people will threaten his life,” she said.
As for Planten, she’s tired of the candidates “digging up all these little details” about the opposition. Noting the campaign’s bitter tone, Hartog said: “It’s been like this through history. Even Roosevelt, in his campaigns, was very rough with his vocabulary.”
Seventy-six years after casting his first presidential ballot — for Herbert Hoover — Hartog can’t wait till Tuesday.
“It’s an obligation and a privilege,” he said of voting. “This is where you live. You have a say. What more can you want?”
Residents at the Classic Residence in Teaneck don’t have far to travel to vote. Their building is their polling place.
Ruth Weinberger and neighbors Eve Bregstein, 94, Herta Heim, 101, Morris Zysblat, 95, and Henrietta Kahn, 94, are political aficionados. “When I walk into my room, I hit Channel 23 (MSNBC) or CNN, and I just keep it on,” Bregstein said.
Political talk dominates in the dining room. There isn’t much disagreement. The Classic Residence is Obama Country.
“I watched every debate, and I am 100 percent sure Obama is the right man,” said the German-born Heim.
Asked what issues are important to them, the Classic Residence seniors ticked off a bunch.
Kahn mentioned the environment: “Solar power, wind power — we should support those attempts.”
Weinberger mentioned abortion rights: “I don’t want to see anyone appointed to the Supreme Court who thinks Roe v. Wade has to be eliminated.”
Bregstein said, “I think people have lost respect for America.”
Then there’s the economy.
“I don’t think we are in a depression,” said Zysblat, who still enjoys day-trading stocks on the computer. “But this election is the most important I can remember, because it is not only this country, but the whole world, that’s in bad shape, economically and politically.”
Can his candidate, Obama, handle the economy?
“He’s not experienced in the economy, but it is important he surrounds himself with people who know, and I think he will,” Zysblat said.
These seniors say America is going through a terrible time, but they’ve seen terrible times before.
“I remember the men in shabby clothing selling apples and the bank holiday, and how good we felt that there was a man, Roosevelt, who was going to take hold of things and make things better,” Weinberger said.
With age comes optimism.
“Once the election is over, I think people will feel hopeful,” Bregstein said. “I speak to many people in Florida, and they feel the same way.”
