Coronado Votes: One for Obama, One for Romney

At one Coronado polling place this morning John McColly explained why he was happy to vote for Mitt Romney for president.

Hearing McColly, a retired Navy commander, talking about his stance, Tamara O'Brien was happy to share hers. She was thrilled to be voting for Barack Obama for a second time.

The two approaches represent the split that polls and projections have indicated will make the 2012 presidential race so close. Talking to voters as they left polls, in fact, they appeared much more passionate about the national race between the Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger than Coronado's mayoral contest.

O'Brien, an economics and history teacher at Coronado High School, said she was “especially excited” to vote for Obama because she believes he's “turning around the economic morass” the country found itself in in 2008, when he was elected.

“I'm looking to a much more prosperous future by re-electing our president,” she said.

That is not McColly's view.

“Obama just isn't cutting it, in any way, on economics, on foreign policy on social policy” he said. “He's not paying for it and he expects me too.

He also was eager to cast his vote against Proposition 30, Governor Jerry Brown's tax proposal to support schools, and for Proposition 32, a proposal to alter campaign contributions.

O'Brien, because of her teaching career, was voting in the opposite direction on Proposition 30, and voting yes on Proposition 38, a competing measure to finance the schools.

“I wouldn't cut off my nose to spite my face,” she said.

McColly and O'Brien voted at the Coronado Unified School District's child development center. Coronadans voted at eight polling places, including First Baptist Church, Sacred Heart, the Coronado Retirement Village and a private home.

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