Southern Indiana couple takes conservative values into voting booth

June 25--SOUTHERN INDIANA -- Tweets. Those darn tweets.

In the first presidential election in which he was eligible to cast a ballot, Hayden Casey voted for Republican Donald Trump.

Casey, a Borden resident, saw the social media red flags even before Trump shocked the world with his 2016 victory over Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. Post-election, the tweets continued, with one of the most recent controversies being Trump's squabble with the Philadelphia Eagles after he rescinded his invitation to the team for a Super Bowl victory celebration at the White House.

ABOUT OUR VOTERS

Name: Hayden Casey

Age: 23

Marital status: Engaged

Children: None

Home: Borden

Hometown: Borden

Profession: Teacher at Christian Academy of Indiana

Education: Bachelor's degree from Indiana University Southeast

Veteran: No

Religion: Christian

Political affiliation: Republican

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Name: Paige Hoke

Age: 23

Marital status: Engaged

Children: None

Home: Pekin

Hometown: Pekin

Profession: Doctoral student in occupational therapy

Veteran: No

Religion: Christian

Political affiliation: Republican

"During the campaign, it was like, 'what did he tweet?'" said Casey, 23, a teacher at Christian Academy of Indiana in New Albany. "It's kind of funny, to be completely honest, that the president of the United States spends an hour of his time tweeting about the NFL.

"It's hard sometimes."

Therein lies the dilemma: Casey, a "strong" conservative, and those who share similar views, like his fiancee, Paige Hoke, are forced to weigh the president's character and Twitter addiction against the protection of issues and values that go to the core of their conservatism. In the privacy of the voting booth, adherence to a conservative agenda seems to carry more weight than character.

"For the most part, you're going to look at the big issues, and take what you can get," Hoke, 23, a Pekin resident, said about finding candidates that most align with her and Casey's values. "But none of them are perfect, either. So it's very hard."

CHARACTER VS. VALUES

The couple cites loyalty, honesty, trustworthiness, hard-working, family and religious as their top traditional values -- traits that guide their decisions when casting a ballot. Faith plays a "major part" when choosing a candidate, according to Casey, citing a passage from Colossians: "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things."

"So at the end of the day, my personal view is if a candidate you want to win, wins, that's great. If they don't, that's not too good," Casey said. "In my view this isn't our home. But you certainly want a candidate that's going to reflect your own beliefs. That would certainly be a top priority."

A candidate's beliefs, and his or her past, inform Casey and Hoke before heading to the polls.

"Because that's going to encompass maybe your belief on abortion, maybe your belief on immigration," Casey said. "When you were a congressman or on the city council, were you true to the people, were you true to the voters, because whenever you run for that stuff in the future, your past will mirror what voters should expect."

The 24-hour news cycle and saturation of social media can blur reality, with information penetrating the ether, and our minds, at a break-neck pace. Processing fact from fiction can be a daunting task.

"If you think about the media nowadays, you don't really know if they're blowing it out of proportion, if it actually happened," Hoke said, "so it's hard to figure out what actually happened."

Information fatigue is real.

"It's this crazy thing that our president is embroiled in all this stuff, and it just seems like it's one thing after another," Casey said. "But on the other side ... where we get all our news with social media, it's just crazy that day after day there's something from left field coming in to try to discredit him in some form or another.

"At the end of the day, he is our president. I do feel like he needs the respect, and to be completely honest, sometimes he makes that a little hard."

Added Hoke: "It's hard to defend him, but some of the stuff, you can't defend it."

Which is one reason why Hoke did not cast a ballot in November 2016, "because I could not bring myself to vote," she said, citing a lack of viable candidates.

A MATTER OF FACT

Since Trump has been in office, however, conservatives like Casey are quick to point out that he has stuck to his agenda, despite the perceived shortfalls in character.

"As far as the political side goes, you do have to appreciate just from the standpoint of campaign promises that every candidate makes but might not follow through on, he has done his best to at least follow through on those," Casey said, citing recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and working to fund a proposed wall along the Mexican border. "You could go down the line with the promises he made during his campaign. It's refreshing to see that at least an elected official is trying to stay true to what they said."

Still, Casey does not blindly align himself with the President on national issues like tax regulation and immigration.

"It's not just 'President Trump is a conservative, he makes this call, it's the right one,'" Casey said.

When it comes to gender issues, specifically the wage gap, Casey and Hoke are for equaling the playing field, but worry how that is best accomplished.

"I feel like that's an issue that's really hard to regulate," said Hoke, a doctoral student in occupational therapy at the University of Indianapolis. "So I'm not sure exactly how that would be addressed. It definitely needs to be addressed, but I'm not sure what the first step would be."

Reproductive rights also are another sticky topic that can smudge political lines.

"I feel like with contraception, reproductive rights, that to me kind of crosses lines," Hoke said. "It makes it more difficult for me because let's take the Affordable Care Act, they made it to where women have birth control for free. I believe in that, but I don't believe in their stance on abortion. I just think it makes it very complicated. It makes it harder for us because we believe in the contraception but not abortion."

A SHALLOW POOL

Stepping into a time machine, how would the allegations against Trump -- the Stormy Daniels fiasco, for instance -- affect how Casey would vote if the 2020 election were to be held tomorrow?

"To be honest with you, it would certainly make me think a little harder, for sure," he said. "Also on the same lines, I could never see myself voting Democrat, especially on the federal level or state level. Those are going to be the ones who adhere to those values and morals and things along that line that we don't agree with."

Before Casey's grandpa died, he got him interested in icons like Ronald Reagan, who embodied conservative values.

Honesty, trustworthiness, loyalty -- values that Casey and Hoke hold dear, but are harder to come by in an instant-gratification, social media-driven world.

"At 23 even I know, man, that this isn't the way it's supposed to be," Casey said. "You don't find those things a lot in politics."

-- Jason Thomas is an assistant editor at the News and Tribune. Reach him at [email protected] and 812-206-2127.

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