Voting Is Steady in Bradenton

Stan Swartz had his OMG moment of the morning as he was leaving his polling place in northwest Bradenton.

"Obama Must Go," he said. His vote, he said, was a vote for a candidate who could replace President Barack Obama.

Swartz, who watched every Republican debate from beginning to end and who attended Tuesday Manatee Tea Party meetings to learn even more about the candidates, voted for Newt Gingrich on Tuesday.

He doesn't believe that Manatee County will necessarily fall in line with the rest of the state on who gets elected here. But, he said, "most of the Republican candidates are very well qualified, and all of them are more qualified than Obama."

His wife, Sue Swartz, said she didn't sit through the debates from beginning to end like her husband did, but she came to the polls Tuesday morning knowing who would get her vote. She said she and her husband have been inundated with information about the candidates.

She is looking for a leader who can "return the country to the values the founding fathers wanted."

"I think that we have just departed from those values that the country was founded on," she said, adding that the judicial branch of government is "taking over."

By 9 a.m. 5,000 registered republicans had cast their ballots at the polls, said Nancy Bignell, assistant supervisor of elections. Combined with absentee and early voting about 20 percent of registered republicans had already voted in the presidential preference primary Tuesday morning.

George Dinius was happy to see election day come, not just so that he could cast his ballot, but also so he could take back his answering machine.

"We have been bombarded with mail and phone calls," Dinius said. "I was frankly glad when the phone calls ended and my answering machine was full of messages."

But Dinius was making at least one phone call of his own.

"I asked my son if he was going to vote," Dinius said. "When he said he wasn't sure, I told him you can't complain if you don't vote. I don't want to hear it."

Sally Dinius said she voted because the country needs a change and she wanted a voice in selecting someone to replace President Obama.

Voter Nancy Slocum said she wants to get somebody in office who wants to do what the people of the country want. She said she has been disappointed in the debates because the candidates were more focused on besting one another than on talking about what they can do for the people in this country.

"That's what I am looking for," she said. "I am hoping there is someone who will listen to the people and act on what the country needs."

As for predictions that Mitt Romney will take the state when the votes are counted tonight, Slocum said she thinks that the outcome really isn't that easy to predict.

She said her husband has gone back and forth about who he will vote for today. And she has always been an independent voter herself. Besides, she said, there are still a lot of names on the Florida ballot that are no longer in the race. She predicts that those candidates will take votes from the others.

Brenda Stratton said she voted for change.

"The country is in trouble, and we need some new leadership," she said. She said she also had been getting a lot of information on the elections beyond the television advertising and she had her mind made up when she went to the polls this morning.

Stan Swartz agreed that the country is in trouble. He said he has seen a lot of friends go under in this economy. He has had friends lose their jobs and go through foreclosure.

"These are not your typical lazy people in that situation," he said. "OMG."