Economic Crisis Helping Obama To Gain Ground In Florida

Voters across Florida said the debate over how to fix the credit crisis has pushed them from the Republican ticket
Sunday,Jay-Z is to hold a free concert in Miami where organizers are asking Obama supporters to bring friends who are not yet registered to vote.

Jim Piccillo lost his job as a bank vice president in August, applied for food stamps to support his two young daughters and swore off a life of loyalty to the Republican Party. He now volunteers here in Pasco County for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

Madeline Aquanno's change of heart came more recently. Two weeks ago, she said, she had planned to vote for Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican candidate for president, who impressed her with his knowledge of the world. But as the economy began to scare her more than terrorism, she reconsidered.

“Obama is more for the people,” she said, near the pool at her middle-class retirement community in Broward County. “I’m worried about the jobs that are being lost, for my son, my daughter, my granddaughter. You have to look down the line.”

Anecdotally, though, Mr. Obama seems to have made some headway. At Christina’s, a family restaurant in downtown New Port Richey, the red leather stools at the counter held both Republicans tried-and-true, and Republicans, like Chris Hart, 48, who had begun to sour on Mr. McCain.

“Every time you turn around, he flips,” Mr. Hart said. A front-desk clerk at a local Y.M.C.A, he said he was also motivated by his need for health insurance, which had recently forced him to buy antibiotics at pet stores because it was cheaper than the pharmacy.

While not sure that Democrats could get him the coverage he needed, Mr. Hart said he wished Mr. McCain focused more consistently on the issue. “I was in the Navy, in aviation like John McCain, so I feel like I’m getting punched by one of my own,” Mr. Hart said.

For Mr. Piccillo, 34, skepticism arrived with the Republican convention. After voting twice for George W. Bush, he said he was especially turned off when Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, mocked Mr. Obama’s early work as a community organizer.

“Those are the people I’m looking to for help,” said Mr. Piccillo, a former mortgage banker who said he had sent out 1,500 résumés without finding a job.


The campaign has also recruited owners of 50 to 60 barber shops in South Florida, giving them voter registration forms to pass along to their patrons.

Steve Schale, Mr. Obama’s Florida campaign manager, said the results statewide had been encouraging. “We have 600,000 African-American voters who are registered to vote who did not vote in 2004,” Mr. Schale said.