Submitted PhotoNancy Eggers is a retired medical transcriptionist from Barney, who said national defense is the most important thing to her.

VALDOSTA — David Darflinger wants the wall.

The 63-year-old favors building a wall across the southern border and is in lockstep with the Republican Party and President Donald Trump on the issue.

“The U.S. can’t handle the influx of people coming through the border,” he said. “It’s a security issue.”

Darflinger was born and raised in Chicago but has lived in Valdosta for about 45 years. 

He is an Army veteran who did tours in Germany and South Korea. His number one concern for the 2020 presidential election is the southern border of the United States. 

Darflinger made it clear he has nothing against immigrants. Both of his grandmothers were immigrants, he said.

“But they have to come here legally,” he said.

His other major concern is health care. 

He said something has to be done about the high costs of medical services and drugs. He said he is against “Medicare for All,” which would expand Medicare to all U.S. citizens instead of only those 65 years and older.

“I don’t believe in that, but there should be some kind of program that everybody can buy into somehow,” Darflinger said. “I just don’t think the taxpayer should foot the bill, all of it at least.”

Health-care costs are too high, he said, and need to come down. Being charged $10 for an aspirin at the hospital is outrageous, he said.

Health care is where Darflinger slightly distances himself from the president, saying he hasn’t done much on the issue.

He said the president is doing an overall good job, but, like many Republicans, wishes the president would stay off Twitter.

But Twitter and health care are not deal breakers for Darflinger. All the president needs to do is build the wall, he said. That is Darflinger’s major concern.

Other than the president’s Tweets, Darflinger said Trump hasn’t disappointed him. Darflinger blames the Democrats for promises Trump has failed to deliver. “They do it just because they hate him,” he said. “Party politics have gotten in the way of what’s good for the country.”

 

Checking the Pulse 

Newspapers and media outlets across the country were taken by surprise after the 2016 election of Trump. Failure to understand where voters were headed meant reporters, cable news and newspapers missed something.

So, The Valdosta Daily Times and sister CNHI newspapers across the nation have periodically taken the “Pulse of the Voter.” We reached out to voters in Lowndes County and spoke with Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives and centrists to see where they stood on issues going into the election.

We asked them about the current administration: its successes and failures. We asked them about their most important issues to get a better understanding where they and, hopefully, the public stand.

Here is a look at some of these conversations.

 

Good with money, bad with character

Paul Ransom is a Democrat living in Valdosta who thinks Trump has done a good job with the economy.

When it comes to the economy, the 85-year-old said Trump is as good as the country’s ever had.

Even though he believes Trump has great knowledge concerning money, Ransom said the president is morally corrupt.

“He’s not a total loss,” the Air Force veteran said. “He’s got a lot of good points, but the bad outweighs the good.”

He calls Trump a “money man” and a “financial wizard.”

“Morally, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but financially, there’s probably not many knives in the drawer that’s sharper than him,” Ransom said.

Immigration will play a key role in the 2020 election, and Ransom said he is in favor of it. The U.S. is made up of immigrants, he said.

People who say immigrants should go back to their home countries have forgotten how it was for their people when they migrated here, Ransom said.

“I wonder how they would feel if they were trying to migrate here? How they would feel if people were pushing back,” he said. “They don’t think about how it was when they migrated here. They were welcomed, and other people trying to get here, they are not welcomed.”

Ransom said immigrants are being portrayed incorrectly. Immigrants consist of nuclear scientists, mathematicians, chefs, carpenters, stone masons and other skilled individuals.

“But if you listen to the present administration, the people that are trying to get in, they’re rapists; they’re murderers; they’re child molesters. They’re the worst form of humanity, which is not true,” he said.

 

Promises made, promises kept

Barbara Schmader is a member of the Lowndes County GOP party.

She was the Lowndes County Trump campaign manager in 2016 and she is considering serving in that position again in 2020.

She will support Trump again this 2020 election, she said.

“Promises made and promises are kept,” Schmader said. “He has been successful in everything he’s done, and the Democrats can’t stand it.”

She said she likes the way he stands up to countries, such as China and Russia.

Unlike the previous administration, which she called weak, other countries are unable to push him around, she said.

Schmader said she won’t grade the president on his job in office until he leaves.

“You might think he failed today or tomorrow, but then he’ll show you he didn’t,” she said.

She wants the border wall.

“I don’t like people coming and expecting us to change for them,” Schmader said. “The first immigrants that came here were happy to be here. They learned the language and became good, hard-working citizens. The people coming here are being brought in by outsiders who want to trash the country.”

Immigration is a big issue for her. She said the country must get a handle on immigration because it’s affecting everything from schools, health and welfare programs and the economy.

She dislikes taxes supporting immigration, she said.

“They need to stay in their country,” she said. “They’re going to end up on welfare, and that’s no way for anyone to live.”

 

Hate-filled rhetoric

Roy Kirkland said immigration boils down to the rule of law. 

An immigrant coming to America has to be legal, but he said he does have compassion for them.

“Individuals who have been here for so many years, and they’ve proven to be law-abiding citizens, and the only thing that’s holding them up is that they’re not a citizen,” Kirkland said.

These immigrants should be given the chance to become citizens, said Kirkland, a 50-year-old who describes himself as a moderate conservative.

He said he thinks there are many employers who like having good immigrant workers who are respectful of the law even though they are not citizens.

People are closed-minded regarding immigration, Kirkland said.

“This nation is founded on immigration,” he said. “We’re all immigrants somehow.”

Kirkland said he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, but favored Trump not being a seasoned politician.

Kirkland said he hoped Trump might be for all of the people and not just for groups of people. But Kirkland said the past few years have been the most politically chaotic of his lifetime.

Trump talks too much and says things he really shouldn’t say, Kirkland said.

He said the president’s rhetoric is filled with a lot of anger and hate, but Kirkland said he thinks Trump is better than his words.

“I really do believe he’s better than that,” he said.

Kirkland said it’s hard to decide what to believe in politics, and that he plans to study politicians more than he has in the past.

“I’m anxious for the next election,” he said. “I want to hear what all the candidates have to say, and I want to see how all of this that’s going on now pans out.”

 

Rough around the edges

Nancy Eggers is a retired medical transcriptionist from Barney. The 65-year-old has one son in the military who is currently deployed.

National defense is most important to her.

“If we don’t take care of our national defense and defend our borders, we won’t have a country to worry about all the social problems,” Eggers said. “I agree with our president that we need to secure the border.”

She said she loves the president, because he is for America.

Trump is a businessman and not a politician, which makes him rough around the edges, she said.

However, she said he’s fighting the swamp and the Deep State in Washington. She said she likes that Trump “brought our military back up.”

“He’s blunt but he does have America’s best interest at heart,” Eggers said.

Eggers describes herself as a centrist.

She said both sides have good ideas but thinks the parties force people into extremes.

“It seems like you have to be this crazy left person or this crazy right person, and I think most Americans are centrists,” Eggers said. “I really want to believe in my heart that we will never get these crazy socialists in – that scares me.”

 

Facing college debt

Alan Sifuentes has lived most of his life in Valdosta.

He said he is a Bernie Sanders supporter and said Sanders is the candidate who can be trusted to ease the struggles of everyday working people.

Sifuentes said he favors strengthening the working people and not the rich.

“We should be closing the divide between the mega rich and the working class,” he said.

Forgiving all college debt and making college free would be a good start, he said.

Going to college shouldn’t cost a person their entire life, he said. He said many countries across the world have already financed advanced education.

“They all greatly surpass the U.S. in math and science,” Sifuentes said. “We grandstand about being number one (but) why don’t we actually become number one in education instead of number one in the number of people in prison and number one in the size of our military.”

He said if the country can bail out the banks then it should be able to bail out the younger generation – a generation that has become educated and is ready to contribute to the country but is held back by student debt.

Sifuentes said things have become worse during the Trump administration.

The entire Trump administration is a failure, he said.

“It’s a circus,” Sifuentes said. “Every day is another crazy thing. Nothing could surprise me at this point. He’s quick to demonize immigrants of all kinds instead of the real threat – the rich (and) himself.”

 

Passion for foster care

Colleen Howard has long been passionate about foster care.

The 23-year-old Valdosta State University graduate has hardly seen any adjustments to the system, which is overcrowded and slow moving.

“I strongly believe the foster and adoption system needs to be reformed,” said Howard, who is in insurance sales in Valdosta. “Especially after this whole abortion law that was passed.”

The “Heartbeat Bill,” which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law this month, will make abortion illegal to perform once a heartbeat is detected — typically at six weeks into a pregnancy.

A devout Christian, Howard said she is pro-life.

However, the abortion law goes too far, she said, and it certainly won’t help an already faltering foster care system.

“The abortion laws will affect the increase in the foster system,” Howard said. “They can’t support what we already have, and it will not support the increase in children that is inevitable.”

Howard said people will still have unwanted pregnancies, but instead of getting an abortion, the child may end up in foster care.

Howard not only supports adjustments to the foster care system, but she would like to see the state improve birth control access and sex education, especially with the “Heartbeat Bill” becoming law.

“If I were in politics, I would not pass the law without having birth control education, sex education and the foster care system revamped,” Howard said. “You have to have those things in place before you can have a law as restrictive as this.”

 

The Valdosta Daily Times will continue reaching out to voters and speaking with them to see what issues matter most to them. If you or anyone you know would be interested in participating in future stories, email tom.lynn@gaflnews.com with your name, contact information and the subject line “Pulse of the Voter.”

In addition to Lynn, reporters Katelyn Umholtz and Amanda M. Usher contributed to this report.

Thomas Lynn is a government and education reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be reached at (229)244-3400 ext. 1256