Election 2012: West Des Moines Voters Say Wind Energy Jobs, Women's Rights Key Issues Driving Their Votes

Andrew McGregory voted this morning as if his job were on the line.

If Republican Mitt Romney wins the presidency today, it might well be, he said.

McGregory, who voted at his West Des Moines precinct at Valley Junction, works as an escort for drivers trucking gigantic wind turbines across Iowa, the No. 2 wind-energy producing state with dozens of wind farms.

The wind energy boom has become an election-year squabble between Romney and President Barack Obama over taxpayer support of the industry. The tax credit supporting the industry is set to expire in December and the industry is already starting to shed jobs – as many as 37,000 nationwide, the wind energy association has estimated.

Obama wants to renew the credit. Romney doesn’t.

McGregory said expansion of wind energy has made Iowa an exciting place to live and work.

“He is going to kill it,” McGregory said of Romney. “The industry needs that tax credit.”

Not Voting is “Not OK”

McGregory’s wife, Tashara Lewis, had other things on her mind. The candidate she thought best represented “leadership and honesty” got her vote, she said.

“Just write Obama and come on,” said her impatient and still sleepy 4-year-old daughter, Aundrea.

Lewis said she and McGregory brought Aundrea and their son, Avery, 8, to the polls to instill in them the importance of voting.

Lewis’s family tradition has been just the opposite. She’s spent the last several days “trying to talk my mom and sister into coming in to vote,” she said. “Hopefully, I got through to them.”

Same-day registration is available at Iowa polling places today. More information is in West Des Moines Patch’s Election Guide.

Lewis said a cousin argues that one person’s vote doesn’t matter, but that’s not the message she wants her children to get.

“It is not OK to not speak your voice,” Lewis said emphatically.

Women Need to “Get Their Groove On”

Vicki and Tim Sickle were No. 13 and No. 22 in line this morning at the precinct in Valley Junction, which saw a steady stream of traffic as the working class neighborhood prepared to go to work.

Tim – a former New Jersey resident who came to Iowa in 1993 to help Valley Junction flood victims, met Vicki, fell in love and never returned to the East Coast – tries to be No. 1 every year, but an earlier rising senior citizen always seems to beat him, he said.

For Vicki, the most compelling issue of the campaign has been a woman’s right to choose – “not necessarily for abortion,” she qualified, “but for access to health care. I want women to have that choice, and honestly, if it was up to men to birth babies, this would not be an issue.

“Women need to get their groove on and stand together, especially when it comes to reproductive rights,” she said. “Everybody has that misconception that all they do is abortions, but there is so much more to it.”

Tim let his wife have the floor. He said he doesn’t argue the point, but the compelling issue for him as a small business owner is the economy.

Both voted for Obama.

“I want to make sure the economy goes forward in a positive direction.” Tim said. “I think we’re moving in a positive direction, and I want this to continue to be the country I have known for the last 64 years.”