Presidential race dominates thoughts, talk

Fresno Bee

FRESNO, Calif. — Even love is taking a back seat to politics these days.

“Usually 90 percent of my sessions are relationship-related,” says Doreen-the-psychic at Star Psychic Center in northwest Fresno, Calif. “But lately, the election is what’s on people’s minds. Everyone wants to know whether they will be worse or better off after the election.”

Forget the disengaged voter. This is the year of the 24-hour news cycle, Web-surfing, nail-biting zeitgeist. As early as February, a Gallup Poll found seven in 10 voters “highly engaged” in the process.

Now, with a few days until Election Day, the tension is nearly unbearable for some.

They know exactly when the daily polls are released. Their moods go up and down on a couple of percentage points gained or lost for their candidate in the presidential election. They know how many people live in Wasilla, Alaska, and 14 different ways to color-code an electoral map.

“I check the polls daily,” said Ken Froelich, a music professor at California State University, Fresno. “Well, the real truth? Once every two hours or hour. Always at 10 a.m., because that’s when the Gallup Poll gets updated.”

There’s long been a saying that all politics is personal. But the 2008 race for the White House, offering clearly differing ideologies during a time of war and economic crisis, is really getting under people’s skins. Voters are confronting history, rethinking long-held political identities, and sometimes feeling uneasy about sharing political opinions.

“Everybody is lining up on this one,” said Michael Botwin, a research psychologist. “Before, things were more esoteric. You might talk about the economy or your thoughts on war.”

But the boomeranging Dow, plummeting home prices, job losses and the continuing war in Iraq have made those topics concrete, he said.

“People are feeling anxious because they believe who becomes president will have a direct bearing on their lives. It’s emotionally charged.”

Political conversation has spilled far beyond the proverbial barber shop and beyond who-are-you-for-or-against.

Dan Quan, a Chinese medicine practitioner, said he’s even had patients with acupuncture needles in their forehead engage him in election talk.

“People are so fired up, so tense. They want to talk, and my role is to have a lot of empathy,” he said.

“But the thing that’s so ironic is that people don’t come into the clinic and casually mention political things like they used to. It’s almost like they’re afraid to talk. There’s this cultural divide, and people take it so personally.”

At Kimbo’s Donuts in Fresno, patrons grapple daily with questions of history and race in the presidential election, This week, the talk at the shop — where there’s almost always a group of black retirees — is about fear for the safety of Barack Obama, who could become the first black American president.