PULSE OF THE VOTERS: Like-wise — Pair of voters share political opinions, philosophies

March 31--Dinah Deck is proud of her home.

The gray stone, six-bedroom house sits in an upscale subdivision on the outskirts of Richmond, Ky. Its downstairs rooms are filled with decor and other souvenirs gathered by her and her husband on their many trips -- thrice to Africa; to Ireland; to China.

The home served as a meeting place recently for Deck and fellow Republican Nancy Binetsch, to discuss their ideologies.

The two women belong to the GOP Ladies Republican Club in Madison County, Ky. Both are now -- though they weren't always -- Republican to the core.

Binetsch, 67, grew up in a Democratic household. It was after her marriage when she began to see things differently.

"I just started paying a little more attention," she said.

That was about 1976.

Other than voting for Jimmy Carter and for Jerry Brown for governor of California in the late '70s, she has voted Republican. The latter vote Binetsch laughs off, stating Brown, who is serving as the Golden State's governor once again, "wasn't so to the left," then.

Carter she voted for because of his philanthropy.

"I just thought he must be a good man," she said, adding that she wasn't so aware of the issues at the time.

Deck, 75, used to be Independent, until she moved to Kentucky nine years ago and had to choose a party to be able to vote in primaries. The choice wasn't a hard one.

"I think I've always leaned toward the Republican side," she said.

Even as an Independent, Deck never voted for a Democrat for president, not liking any of the candidates' platforms.

She also said she will not vote for Republican candidates if she doesn't agree with them.

"I don't care if they're Republican or Democrat; if I don't believe in them, I'm not going to vote for them."

The 75-year-old said she can tell when a person is sincere; Binetsch added she can, as well.

"Especially when you meet them in person," she said.

TRUMP SUPPORTERS

Donald Trump's sincerity, they say, is one reason they support him.

Both women remember the night of the 2016 Presidential election. Both hoped, though they thought uselessly, that Trump would take it.

"I was surprised," Binetsch said, recalling that her son came and told her in the wee hours of the morning that Trump had just taken Wisconsin, sealing the win.

She admires Trump's campaign strategy, which she credits with getting him into office.

"I think Trump was really smart in keeping track of the electoral college," Binetsch said. "There were some states that he knew he didn't need to spend much time in."

Deck said she was "viscerally ill" the two weeks leading up to the election.

"It's the only time I've ever been actually ill over an election," she said.

Afterward, as Deck watched Trump's inauguration, she became even more convinced he was the right choice.

She said she could see how well brought up Trump's children were.

"He has raised some nice kids," she said. "They haven't been handed everything on a silver platter."

And they do good things, Binetsch added.

The women see Trump as a breath of fresh air.

"I'm ecstatic; my husband even more so than I am," Deck said.

Binetsch's husband also is through the roof; he watches the stock market, Binetsch said.

"And we're getting a tax refund," she added.

With Trump, there are no baby steps, Deck said.

Binetsch agreed.

"He's used to getting things done," she said. "We've never seen this much movement in so many different areas."

Deck is sure that Trump will not "give away the farm."

"Obama gave money away," she said. "That bothered me. We've got a deficit, and he's giving money to other countries."

Deck has Democratic female friends who voted for him, she said.

Deck scoffs at the idea that some didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, asserting that Trump's uniqueness drew the votes.

"He was something new and refreshing," she said. "He was a businessman, not a career politician. And I liked that."

Both women like how Trump "tells it like it is," though they depart in their tastes on Trump's habit of tweeting.

Binetsch likes that the President shares his thoughts freely; "He has every right to have an opinion," she said.

The format is too "in your face," for Deck's liking, however.

"There's not a filter," she said.

Other than that complaint, however, Deck likes things, at least in the White House, just as they are.

"I like the idea of what we have now," she said.

Except maybe for the "fake news" she believes is prevalent.

"You're saturated with the rhetoric," she said.

DIVERSE PATHS

Though they agree on most things ideologically, the two women couldn't have more different educational backgrounds. Deck has a master's degree in nursing administration and business management; Binetsch never attended any type of post-secondary education.

"I went straight from high school and got my M.R.S. (Mrs.)," she joked.

Binetsch and her husband were business owners, opening an insurance business in California. Upon their move to Kentucky in 1998, they opened two Curves fitness franchises, which they've since sold.

Both Binetsch and Deck say they never "had anything handed to them."

Deck's husband served in the military, deploying twice to Vietnam. He worked afterward as a nurse, as did Deck.

The couple had children already when they went to college, and Deck said it wasn't easy.

"We've come up through the ranks," she said. "We worked very, very hard."

Though they struggled, she and her husband never received food stamps, she said.

Deck, a former smoker, was forced to give up the habit because they couldn't afford it.

Now, Deck regularly donates to food pantries and other charities, and gets rankled when she sees those waiting to obtain food standing outside smoking.

Like Deck's choice to give up cigarettes so she and her family could have other needed things, it's people's decisions that determine where they go in life, Binetsch said.

"We all make choices," she said. "Everybody can choose what road to go down."

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