Independent Voters Say the Darndest Things

25 Voters I'll never forget

1. "Both sides are just buzzards picking off the same slop wagon." - Elderly man, Texas

2. "Can we leave this seat vacant? That might be better." -Middle-Aged man, New Hampshire

3. “We have to come up with solutions for each little thing, one at a time." - Middle-Aged woman, Maine

4. “Politics is in your wallet. It's in your lifestyle. We've gotta talk about it.” - Older Middle- Aged man, New Hampshire

5. “Populism is just one step below Socialism.” - Middle-Aged man, Massachusetts

6. “I can afford my taxes, I don’t need to lower them.” -Middle-Aged woman, Colorado

7. “I bought this house in 1974 and it was 29,000, now it's 1.2 million: I don't know how that's even possible! It’s not worth 1.2 million. I wouldn’t pay 1.2 million. How does anyone do it now?" Elderly man, New Hampshire

8. “I moved here to die, not to live forever.” - Elderly woman, Florida

9. "In politics, I always have to ask, ‘Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?’" - Elderly man, New Hampshire

10. “You Republicans didn’t want pot legalized. Now you want to tax the **** out of it? I thought you didn’t like taxes, either!” - Younger Middle-Aged man, Colorado

11. “There are no easy answers, just hard choices, and you have to be prepared to make those." -Elderly woman, New Hampshire

12. “I don’t understand why the young people today are always moralizing. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Live, grow, make mistakes.” - Elderly man, Florida

13. “I wanna know why they can’t fix the potholes. Am I supposed to trust them with anything else?” - Middle-Aged woman, Idaho

14. “You used to wake up in the kitchen on the lino-” (pauses and stares at me a moment) “Do you know what linoleum is?” -Elderly woman, Texas

15. “Issues? I moved here from Chicago and these motherf*ers out here go and take Fentanyl… on purpose!” - Middle-Aged man, Indiana

16. "We’ve gotta talk about Nuclear energy. It’s not as dangerous as natural gas, we just think it is.” Elderly man, New Hampshire

17. “Why are we letting China come in and buy land with artesian wells?” Middle- Aged man, New Hampshire

18. “Eisenhower gave us land to homestead. It necessarily lowered the price of crops, but at least we had property.” Elderly woman, Idaho

19. “School choice? I want to know what happened to all the Shop, Driver’s Ed, and Home Ec classes. We don’t want kids to know how to do anything anymore!” Elderly man, New Hampshire

20. “I’m not for minimum wage, or against it: Hospitality jobs are meant to be temporary. What I want to know, is, why are people stuck?” Older Middle-Aged man, Texas

21. “We all knew somebody who was destroyed by Vietnam. We couldn’t watch a younger generation go through that… again. But maybe we went about it wrong.” Older woman, California

22. “Would your mama vote for Hershel?” -Elderly man, Georgia

23. “I’m still waiting to see if anybody is going to do anything about the Sackler Family,” -Young man, New Hampshire

24. “I had to go in for a test at the hospital… for the 5th time, because they lost the results, or the machine was broken, something: And each time they charged insurance for it: You expect me to believe this isn’t some kind of scam? My cost doesn’t go up, but somebody’s does.” - Older Middle-Aged man, Maine

25. “The young people are going to have to fix this. Not because it’s their fault; but because we trusted people and didn’t know what was really going on. I’m sorry.” Elderly man, Florida