Full Text of the Excerpt

JACQUELYN HALL:

Have you ever been involved in Democratic politics on a precinct level?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

Yes, me and my husband have hauled them to vote. I'd knock at the door, and he'd haul them.Oh, yes, lots of times. I've worked at the ballot box. I worked in the city election since I come up here.

JACQUELYN HALL:

In the Hickory city election?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

Yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What about in Gastonia? Were you all in city politics?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

We worked lots, yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Do you remember Governor Max Gardner?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

Yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What did you think about him?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

I liked him good.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Which North Carolina politicians have you supported or thought were good?

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

I've supported all of them on the Democrat ticket. [Laughter]

JACQUELYN HALL:

You're a real straight ticket.

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

Yes, I vote straight. I figure that when the Democrats picks them out, that they're all right or they wouldn't run them.

JACQUELYN HALL:

But there haven't been any local politicians that you had thought were especially good.

MAREDA SIGMON COBB:

No. I just don't split my ticket. When they pick them out, I think that they're all right. I just go ahead and vote for them. I don't see no sense in that. I'll tell you what I think's wrong on this registering. The Democrats, all these back years, has had primaries. The people that don't vote Democratic go, and they register Democratic to get to vote in the primaries. That's the reason, I think, a lot that the Democrats gets bad people. When the primary comes up, then they vote for whoever they want to in the Democrat primary, and then when the big election comes up they don't have to support him; they vote the other way. I don't think that's right. I think that if they vote Republican, they ought to be registered Republican and they should not vote in the Democrat primary. It ain't right on nobody; anybody knows that. But they have; they've done that all these years. But I don't think they should be allowed to do it. I wish they'd pass a law that they couldn't. If you vote for that man in that primary, you ought to be made to support him in the big election. If that's the man you want then, you ought to be made to vote for him in the big election. That's the way I think about it.