Voters' Issues Series...

Many South Portland voters view wars in personal terms
With many residents deployed, some wounded and three dead, the war has hit close to home here.
By MATT WICKENHEISER
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald

First in a series

SOUTH PORTLAND — Yellow ribbons embrace oaks and maples around the newly opened Maine Military Museum. A few hundred yards away, the city plans to erect an armed services monument in Mill Creek Park where Ocean Street and Broadway meet.

The park buzzed with activity in July when Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, a storied war veteran, visited and spoke to a crowd of hundreds.

The city has lost three men to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than any other community in Maine. Others from South Portland have been deployed in the ongoing foreign wars, and some have returned injured. So, in many ways, the city remains intertwined with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I think there's a greater awareness," said Valorie Swiger of South Portland, whose son, U.S. Army Sgt. Jason Swiger, died March 25, 2007, when a suicide bomber attacked his convoy in Iraq's Diyala province. "People are more understanding."

Once the top issue as voters considered White House candidates, the wars have been eclipsed by the economy and bread-and-butter pocketbook issues, national polls indicate. Yet, here in South Portland, the wars remain a key issue for voters as they consider their choice for president.

"It's not the issue that it was a year ago, and that's pretty clear," said Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville. "The economy, it seems to me, is a much bigger issue. The cost of gas and the cost of heating are – and probably should be – a bigger issue."

Even so, the wars remain a plank in the platforms that the candidates have built in markedly different ways.

'I WANT TO BE SAFE'

McCain frames his stance on the war as a "strategy for victory in Iraq." An advocate of the troop surge that's largely been seen as successful, McCain advocates a U.S. military presence in Iraq until al Qaida is defeated there and until a "competent trained and capable Iraqi security force is in place and operating effectively."

Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama offers a "plan for ending the war in Iraq." His plan calls for "a responsible, phased withdrawal" that would remove combat brigades by summer 2010, while keeping a residual force in the region to conduct targeted anti-terrorism missions.

Last Wednesday, a day before the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, voters in South Portland said the wars held a significant spot in their consciousness – but not necessarily the top spot.

That was the case even for people like Swiger, who have been intimately aware of the war. Swiger drew national attention in 2003 when the city asked her to remove the yellow ribbons she and supporters had put up. The South Portland City Council voted to temporarily allow the ribbons in 2007, when Swiger's son was killed. More than 2,000 bows went up around the city.

"I know who I'm voting for, I know who I support," said Swiger. "It doesn't necessarily have to do with the Iraq situation."

Swiger said she supports McCain because he's a veteran, and he's experienced.

"I want to be safe," she said. "It wouldn't matter to me who's sitting there, as long as I know I'd be safe."

At Uncle Andy's, an Ocean Street diner, Tom King said the war in Iraq "is very much an issue." King said he doesn't necessarily agree with the war, but didn't see an easy way to simply quit the occupation.

"It's not that simple," he said. "We're still going to have people there for years and years."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=210053&ac=PHnws






Photos By Jack Milton/Staff Photographer