CARIBOU — Francis Fernandez of Caribou can’t remember a time that he has not been active in the political process.
The child of a military father and a teacher who moved often during his youth, the now 64-year-old recalls a “turbulent” childhood during which President John F. Kennedy was killed when he was living in North Dakota, the “unsettling” 1960’s and the “threat of nuclear war.”
“I became active in politics because my father was,” Fernandez recalled recently. “Although there were strict regulations because he was in the military, he always encouraged my three sisters and I to get out there and protest if we wanted to, to write letters to the editor, to voice our concerns to our senators and representatives. And that is something that we’ve always done.”
Fernandez said he always watched every presidential debate, but he has skipped the last two.
“I guess it is a bit of political fatigue,” he admitted. “It just has gotten so mean spirited with the character attacks and frequent back and forth about emails and scandals about ‘locker room talk’ instead of debating the issues like they used to do,” he said. “And there is no fact checking, especially during the first one with [NBC’s] Matt Lauer. That one was just terrible.”
Carol Fornier of Houlton agreed. The 39-year-old political science major was “disgusted” with all of the debates.
“I simply can’t believe what is going on in our country now, with the fighting breaking out at some of the Trump rallies and the person who tried to rush the stage during one of his speeches,” she said. “The turbulence and the violence is so unsettling and I believe it mirrors what we see going on in some of our neighborhoods, cities and communities.”
Fornier said that during the last presidential campaign, she was heavily involved for the candidate she voted for, putting up signs, making calls, and driving voters to the polls on election day. This campaign, she said, she did the same thing for the candidate she supported, only to see him lose in the primaries.
“I truly believe we would see a different election if we had different candidates,” she said. “So I am definitely not as active this political season. I am not even watching the news as much anymore.”
Jason Levesque, another Caribou resident who has volunteered in the last two presidential campaigns, said he has refused to watch any political news since “Trump won the nomination” and “it seemed like the whole focus was going to be on Hillary Clinton’s emails.”
“It is just a waste of time,” he said. “They are not debating the issues, they are debating scandals,” he said. “That is not presidential, in my book.”
