Suffolkians watch the results roll in

Published 1:04 am Wednesday, November 7, 2012

John Raguth was at Madigan's Restaurant on Tuesday, watching the election results and enjoying a quiet beer. He voted for Mitt Romney but said he has little faith in the government.

If you took a drink in one of bars along East Pinner Street on the evening of Election Day, chances were good you either voted for Mitt Romney or politics isn’t your thing.

“This is a Romney bar,” declared Ann Long, 65, holding court behind a small table at Ray and Ann’s Sports Bar on East Pinner Street.

“We’ve been talking about it (the election) all evening,” added the bar’s co-namesake, ashing a cigarette. “They say they’re happy that they voted and they’re Romney all the way.”

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Perched at the bar in front of Long were Curtis Lee Edwards, 49, David Brooks, 46, and Joe Branch, 58. Above them, election results trickled in on a TV screen tuned to Fox News.

The men seemingly all voted Republican, but it was difficult to tell for sure with the amount of kidding around. “You’re not a parole officer, are you?” one of them joked.

A few others at Ray and Ann’s were playing pool and not paying a lot of attention to election results. Most folks were nursing Bud Light beers.

“I’ll probably close up early, because we don’t have that many in here,” Long said, adding that she doesn’t like President Obama “because of that health care thing.”

She doesn’t trust he’s even a citizen, let alone was born in America. “His high school records, his college records” haven’t been revealed, she said. “He hasn’t never been in the service; he hasn’t done nothing.”

Down the road at Madigan’s Restaurant, Matt, 50, and Juanita, 51, Elder were also watching the returns on Fox.

“I’d like to know right now,” the husband said. “We’ve been waiting for four years to try to get some kind of direction of where the country’s going. It’s kind of agonizing”

His wife said, “I think we’re going to be up a lot tonight, because I think this election means a lot, not just to us but to the country and the people of this country. I would have climbed over broken glass and hot coals to vote.”

Both voted for Romney. This year, for this first time, they said, they volunteered for the Republican Party campaign and donated as well.

At the other end of the bar was John Raguth, from a younger generation. He too voted Republican but was more conflicted about the decision to do so.

“I’m on the fence about it, to be honest,” he said. “I don’t trust my government — it’s pretty simple.”