Report from Alexandria

From reporter Michael Alison Chandler in Alexandria:

At Douglas MacArthur Elementary School in a leafy Alexandria neighborhood, volunteers decorated in stickers staffed card tables piled high with fliers and tipped over Dunkin Donuts coffee cups.

Democratic precinct captain Dick Hobson reviewed the results from past elections. Mark Warner won by 62 percent four years ago and John Kerry won 63 percent last fall, he said. The Democrats are hoping to increase the margin of victory for Kaine today.

"I'm an independent voter. That's important to me," said Elena Velasco, 34, an actor and director and mother of 5, including two young daughters hanging on hand. She said she and her son researched the candidates together as he was working on a homework assignment for his 8th grade civics class.

"I was really appalled and disheartened to hear Kilgore's views on illegal immigration," she said, in particular his opposition to building a day labor center for illegal immigrants in Herndon. "That sealed it that I wouldn't vote for him."

She said she was less concerned about immigrants' legal status and "more concerned about whether they have a coat on their back." She said her father was a legal immigrant from Peru, but that she knows many people who came to the country illegally.

She said it was harder to decide between Potts and Kaine, though, because she thought both candidates had good ideas about the issues she cared about, such as education and cutting back on urban sprawl. In the end, she elected Tim Kaine, because of his personal stance against the death penalty, which she said goes along with her own personal and religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic.

Alexandria residents Gail and Kenneth Gardner stopped by the polls with their grandchildren in the early afternoon and played out a familiar routine:

"He cancels' my vote out and I cancel his vote out," said Gail, 72, a retired civil servant for the Army. "I voted Democrat and he voted Republican."

She said she voted for Tim Kaine, because "if he's gonna follow suit with Gov. Warner, then that's great." She also said she trusted that "he won't over tax us."

"That's the only way he can get anything done" was her husband's retort. The 71-year old who retired after 23 years with the Marine Corps said he thought Kilgore would find different ways to raise money to build roads, while "Kaine wants to tax us more to give money to immigrants who are illegal."

"Ingenuity got them here," his wife said in response, and she doesn't mind public funding going to people who are working hard.

The couple agreed that they don't always disagree, but when they started talking about the last presidential election, Gail ended up threatening her husband with her cane.

"In spite of this, I'm gonna keep ya," Kenneth said.

By Robert Thomson |  November 8, 2005; 3:56 PM ET  | Category:  Misc.
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