Tradition holds: Culpeper votes for Republican

Culpeper County maintained its statewide reputation as a Republican stronghold Tuesday night, selecting presidential candidate John McCain with 54 percent of the vote.

View a slideshow in our Multimedia Gallery

The county has voted to send Republicans to the Oval Office in every election for the past 40 years — from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.

And though many voters spoke of change Tuesday in Culpeper, it wasn’t the Barack Obama sort of change that won the red county over in the end. “I don’t like Obama,” said Culpeper voter John Austin, 44, of why he voted for McCain. “There’s way too much wrong with him. His stuff scares me.”

Instead, said Austin, a truck driver, he prefers McCain’s stance on the economy and the war in Iraq. He felt the Arizona senator had more experience with both.

Culpeper voter Rose Toulotte, 47, also liked the four-term senator’s experience, especially when it comes to issues impacting the U.S. military.

“In my heart I’m Democrat, but I know if Democrats get a hold of it they’re going to screw it all up,” said Toulotte, a counselor with the Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board.

Election Day in Culpeper brought gray skies and sporadic drizzle with mild 60-degree temperatures. The voting lines were long at times — especially early — but rarely immobile.

Robert Barfield, chief election officer at the Pearl Sample Elementary School polling location, said voters were waiting when he arrived to start setting up Tuesday at 4:30 a.m.

“I told them, ‘It’s going to be a while,’ but they wanted to be the first ones to come through the door,” said Barfield, who’s been working elections in Culpeper for about a decade.

The overall attitude among voters was one of optimism and excitement, translating to 72.3 percent turnout of the county’s 27,235 registered voters. Of that, Obama received 8,782 votes to McCain’s 10,701.

Longtime poll worker Virginia Jessup marveled at the turnout Tuesday morning, saying it was the largest she had seen in her 33 years of working the polls.

“Everyone has been so congenial,” she said, mentioning that one voter even returned to the Pearl Sample voting site with Knakal’s donuts for election workers. “All the voters seem to know what they’re doing and they know who they want to vote for.”

Both of the town’s two voting precincts selected Obama for president, with East Fairfax voters casting 62 percent or 1,153 ballots in favor of the Democrat from Illinois versus 722 for McCain.

“Change, it’s time for change. Somebody’s got to change. We got to change,” said East Fairfax voter Deborah Shears Smith, 42, an Obama supporter. “He cannot do it overnight. He’s not going to do in a year; he’s not going to do it in two years. But he’s going to put a dent in it.”

At West Fairfax — the county’s largest polling location — voters narrowly selected Obama by five votes: 1,335 compared to 1,330 for McCain.

West Fairfax voter Jeff Jarrells, 39, selected Obama because he’s weary of the alternative.

“I’m tired of Republicans running things,” he said. “It can’t get any worse.” Jarrells named the war in Iraq and the economy as his top two issues.

National security was also a big issue for Republican voter Bernard Williams. The 80-year-old arrived at the Pearl Sample Elementary School polling place around 9:30 a.m. in a bus with a dozen other residents from the nearby Culpeper Baptist Retirement Community.

The retired Fairfax County government worker termed the 2008 presidential election “the most interesting” in his lifetime.

In spite of higher-than-usual voter turnout, poll workers reported no problems with the county’s 47 electronic voting machines.

Eugene Brady, vice chairman of the Culpeper County Electoral Board, said the number of electronic votes cast were backed up with numbered paper cards assigned to each voter. Periodically throughout the day and at the end of voting Tuesday, he said, the machine totals were verified with the paper totals to make sure they matched.

And they did.

Regardless of which presidential candidate wins the overall election, voter Robbie Stidham, a retired auditor, hoped for unity.

“Whether you’re Democrat, whether you’re Republican, this is our home,” she said. “I don’t care what you are as long as you remember this is America. We like our freedom and we’re not going to give it up.”

Voter Paul Estes, 38, reminded “the people” that making change is up to them as well. “There’s a lot of crucial decisions that need to be made, and I don’t think the president is going to be doing it all,” said Estes, an employee of Micron in Manassas.

“In my opinion, it’s the individuals that need to change,” he added, talking about the current economic crisis, which he said was spawned by ‘reckless spending,’ inflated mortgages and living beyond one’s means.

“Our past presidents didn’t get us into this mess — we got ourselves into it.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or

Culpeper’s voting history

The past 108 years of presidential
voting in Culpeper County. (Number of votes included on right):

1900
William J. Bryan (D) 1,512
William McKinley (R) 847
John C. Wooley (Ph) 1

1904
Alton B. Parker (D) 798
Theodore Roosevelt (R)  209

1908
William J. Bryan (D) 962
William H. Taft (R) 233

1912
Woodrow Wilson (D) 753
William H. Taft (R) 108

1916
Woodrow Wilson (D) 849
Charles E. Hughes (R) 184

1920
James N. Cox (D) 973
Warren G. Harding (R) 330

1924
John W. Davis (D) 876
Calvin Coolidge (R) 190
Robert M. LaFollette (Pg) 42

1928
Alfred E. Smith (D) 836
Herbert C. Hoover (R) 753

1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 1,349
Herbert C. Hoover (R) 417
Norman Thomas (S) 16

1936
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 1,266
Alfred M. Landon (R) 551

1940
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 1,208
Wendell L. Wilkie (R) 579

1944
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 1,022
Thomas E. Dewey (R) 750

1948
Harry S. Truman (D) 804
Thomas E. Dewey (R) 682
Strom Thurmond (SR) 211

1952
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 1,507
Adlai E. Stevenson (D)    987

1956
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 1,502
Adlai E. Stevenson (D)      966

1960
Richard M. Nixon (R) 1,630
John F. Kennedy (D) 1,332

1964
Lyndon B. Johnson (D 1,886
Barry M. Goldwater (R)  1,775

1968
Richard M. Nixon (R)   2,229
Hubert H. Humphrey (D) 1,239
George C. Wallace (AI)  1,217

1972
Richard M. Nixon (R) 3,707
George S. McGovern (D) 1,316

1976
Gerald R. Ford (R) 3,659
James E. Carter (D) 2,892

1980
Ronald Reagan (R) 4,312
James E. Carter (D) 2,519
John Anderson (I)      231
Barry Commoner (C)   135

1984
Ronald Reagan (R) 5,600
Walter Mondale (D) 2,253

1988
George H. Bush 5,896
Michael Dukakis 2,557

1992
George H.W. Bush 5,217
Bill Clinton (D) 3,444
Ross Perot (Ref) 1,640

1996
Bob Dole (R) 5,688
Bill Clinton (D) 3,907
Ross Perot (Ref) 787

2000
George W. Bush (R) 7,440
Al Gore (D)   4,364

2004
George W. Bush (R) 10,026
John Kerry (D) 5,476

Source: “Culpeper: A Virginia
County’s History Through 1920”

Legend
AI: American Independent
C: Citizens’
D: Democrat
I: Independent
Pg: Progressive
Ph: Prohibition
R: Republican
S: Socialist
SR: States’ Rights
Ref: Reform Party