CONCORD, N.H. — One week after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Diane Lochocki drove with her boyfriend from New York to New Hampshire’s statehouse. Ben Carson was filing for the presidential primary, and Lochocki, 78, wanted to see him. It was time for a new president, one who actually took the threat of radical Islam seriously.
“Terrorists are insidious people,” said Lochocki. “Your neighbor could be one, and you wouldn’t know. I feel we should close our borders until we get the rest of the world under control. If that’s inhumane, then I’m inhumane. You think what you want.”
The attacks that killed 130 and injured more than 350 in France’s capital Nov. 13 changed the 2016 contest for president — by changing what voters worried about.
Across the country, among both Republicans and Democrats, have come pronouncements of anger and fear not seen after the terror attacks in London or Madrid — or even, in some ways, after Sept. 11, 2001. Suspicion of Muslims and intolerance of refugees have exploded; so has criticism of President Obama’s handling of the terror threat.
Poll confirms shift
A Saturday Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll shows 42 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire’s upcoming GOP primary now call terrorism and national security the country’s most important issues. Before Paris, they worried most about the economy.
In more than two dozen interviews over the weekend in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Alabama, voters offered some clues as to why Paris has altered the consciousness so dramatically. They described feeling more afraid of the Islamic State. They are uncomforted by Obama’s leadership. And, with the pain of the Iraq War still weighing on the nation, they are listening to the people who say America must send troops to the Middle East to fight.
But it was the refu gee question that concerned them first and most. “I feel safe now, but if we start letting in a bunch of people who are associated with the terrorists, that’s dangerous,” said Jeff Warcholik, a 41-year old carpenter.
Fear dominates
This weekend, as candidates barnstormed in the first primary states, the fear of terrorism dominated questions from voters. And those voters wondered what had been lost in seven years of the Obama presidency. His pre-Paris comment that the Islamic State had been “contained” weighed on them. Some couldn’t believe that he continued to argue for settling Syrian refugees in the United States.
Questions about Obama — his courage, and even his basic interest in defeating the terrorists — permeated everything. In New England, where memories of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing are fresh, the Paris attacks sent voters wondering about what could disrupt their lives. Old facts and stories tumbled from their memories. Didn’t the 9/11 hijackers get here legally? Didn’t the Tsarnaev brothers?
But the fear spread far beyond the places that terrorists had actually targeted. In his first TV ad, which debuted on Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said bluntly that “what happened in Paris could happen here.” At a Saturday rally for Donald Trump in Alabama, voter after voter described some hard new thinking about safety in the wake of Paris.
“I have never been fearful of anything in my life because I put my faith in God,” said Kathleen Jones, 58, a vice president at a medical equipment company. “But I went out this week and bought a pistol.”
Amber Jean Hyde, 27, said she feels less safe than after 2001 because she has seen the beheadings, the London bombings, the Paris attacks — and watched the “hate against Americans, against Christians, grow.”
Fate of refugees
Even the Democratic candidates for president, who had condemned the Trump-led call to freeze new refu gee arrivals in the United States, confronted the heightened level of fear and anxiety. Repeatedly, they addressed voters who were worried about infiltration.
At an event for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in Orangeburg, S.C., Democratic county treasurer Steve Summers said many of the Republicans are appealing to people’s base instincts. He saw no imminent terrorist threat. But he parted with Sanders, and the president, on whether Syrian refugees should keep flowing into the United States.
“I think they need to slow that down,” said Summers.
There were risks in the refu gee issue —and not just for Democrats, but for Republicans, too. Both Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., argued that colleagues like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are using the no-refugees issue as a smoke screen. But keeping refugees out isn’t enough, according to McCain and Graham. Instead, the pair want to sell voters on the need for American troops on the ground.
“People want to cheer for being tough,” said Graham. “When I say, ‘We need to go on the ground and kill every bastard we can find,’ I find that they cheer that, too. The Donald’s taking Obama’s approach and making it sound tough — but Obama’s approach doesn’t work.”
