Economy weighs heavily on Florida working class

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Clarito Macalalad knows what it's like to support a family of four on a $12.08-an-hour wage. But the cook at a Disneyworld restaurant suspects that the Republican presidential candidates — and Mitt Romney in particular — don't have any idea of what America's working poor are going through. And, partly for that reason, Macalalad says he'll probably vote for President Barack Obama in the fall.

"Romney, he's too rich," Macalalad, 38, said. "He wouldn't know what to do if he was poor."

For others, there's only one thing that matters as they weigh Romney's candidacy.

"He's not Obama," says Becky Niemczyk, 34, who works at a Christmas-themed shop in Downtown Disney and planned to back the former Massachusetts governor.

Despite Florida's wealthy beach resorts, expensive Disney vacations and swank Miami hotels, much of the state is populated by hard-working, blue-collar people who were hit hard during the recession and struggle daily.

The large working class in the populous area surrounding Interstate 4, which runs from Tampa on the Gulf Coast to Daytona Beach on the Atlantic and straight through the heart of Orlando's theme park zone, often holds the key to a candidate's success in both primary and general elections.

Over the next 10 months, Obama and the eventual Republican nominee will make countless visits to this area of a state suffering mightily from the slow economic recovery. The state has nearly 10 percent unemployment, some of the nation's highest foreclosure rates and skyrocketing property insurance costs, all of which are casting a pall over people as they decide who to support in Tuesday's Republican presidential primary and in the fall — if they vote at all.

"It's a lot of empty promises," groused Donna Bosse, 54, who works in a kiosk selling discount theme-park tickets in a strip mall just outside Disney's gates. She doesn't plan to vote, but she still has an opinion, saying: "It's going to take a lot more than one man to turn this economy around."

In a string of interviews, voters said they are taking into account their own dwindling finances as well as the overall dismal situation as they weigh who to support in a state that has become a critical battleground in every recent White House race.