Voters also finding their voice

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ROCK HILL, S.C. -- Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't the only one who has found her voice.Last week, a slight, blond preschool teacher named Trish Schronce pinned on an "Annoy a Liberal. Work Hard. Be Happy" button, squeezed through the crowd at a John McCain town-hall meeting and asked McCain what he'd do to bring the troops home from Iraq.This was hardly a surprising or unusual question in this presidential campaign.But it's the only issue for Schronce. Her son, Matt, 24, is fighting in Iraq, and "I just want him to come home," she told me later.McCain, who opposes a timetable for troop withdrawal, gave his stock answer about bringing home the troops as soon as possible, with honor. But that night he added something he rarely mentions. His own son, Jimmy, 19, is a Marine in Iraq, and his son, Jack, 21, is a midshipman at the Naval Academy, he said. He knows personally how parents of Iraq troops feel.His answer bonded him with Schronce."I know John McCain doesn't want his sons in the war, either," she said. She snagged a McCain campaign sign to take home.Something is happening to notoriously apathetic American voters. They care.This year, it's the economy, war and feelings, stupid. Candidates are sharing their softer sides and inner thoughts.When Clinton showed her vulnerability for a few precious seconds in New Hampshire, voters responded and she won the Democratic primary. She later said she found her voice.Candidates as different as Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat John Edwards routinely tell audiences they are running for president because they feel so strongly about jobs and other issues that affect ordinary Americans. Barack Obama's campaign centers on hope and inspiration.The more the candidates emote, the more citizens vote. The early presidential primaries and caucuses have seen record turnouts. Among the reasons this campaign seems to matter more than usual is that the presidential race is wide open, with no incumbent president or vice president on ballots, and no front-runner in either party, yet.The primary schedule is anything but boring, with each contest a dramatic battleground of different demographics and regional flavor. And, the candidates' "change" rhetoric may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.When every candidate stresses change and taking back the country, people actually begin to change and take back the country. Who knew?A festive, hopeful, boozy atmosphere permeated the packed house at T-Bones on the Lake, a restaurant and bar on Lake Wylie, just across the North Carolina line, during McCain's "Straight Talk Express" town-hall meeting.Melissa Anderson had decided this election she needs to know more about candidates and issues. She couldn't get close enough to hear McCain, so she took a seat at the bar and talked politics with Glenn DiCristofaro of Charlotte.Voters in South Carolina can choose to vote in either party primary, and Anderson was trying to decide whether to follow her heart and vote for Edwards in the Democratic primary -- even though she feared his campaign is a lost cause -- or go with a safer choice, McCain, in the Republican primary."We need to take our country back," she said. The war and the economy are her issues."I've never had trouble finding jobs, but the economy is absolutely awful now," she said. She's working as a courier because it's good money, but she would rather have an office job.DiCristofaro, who recently retired from Bank of America, is a Republican and supported McCain in the primary but is leaving his options open for the fall."I want whoever's going to be better for the economy," he said.He proudly showed off a picture on his cell phone he'd taken in Charleston last fall -- of Bill Clinton."I either could shake his hand or take his picture, so I took his picture," he said.DiCristofaro never voted for Clinton, "but I benefited from his policies. The economy was good and the country was never attacked. What more do you want?"Anderson, mulling that over, lit a cigarette. Cristofaro spoke up on a personal issue."I'd support anybody who'd ban smoking in bars," he said.(Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief of Media General News Service. E-mail mmercer(at)mediageneral.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)