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The Ghost Of Fdr

TOLEDO, Ohio--By far my most colorful interview of the day was with Garth Turpening, a retired tool grinder from a truck parts company. 

Turpening is 95 years old. This is the 19th presidential election in which he has voted. 

He remembers voting for Franklin Roosevelt. And, like a lot of people who came of age during the Great Depression, he still identifies the Democratic Party with the New Deal programs FDR signed into law. "I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for them," he told me, pulling out the Social Security card he first got so many decades ago. (That's the card in the picture.)

During the primaries, he voted for Hillary Clinton. So did he ever think of backing John McCain once she was out? Not a chance. "I'm for the man that's for the average person, the working person," he told me. "We need to put people back to work."

--Jonathan Cohn