COON RAPIDS, Minn. — The wrinkles in Pearl Dick's 81-year-old face folded into a grimace of anger and disappointment as she scolded President Bush.
"I voted for him, but damn it, I'm not happy with what he's done" in Iraq, she said after noontime macaroni at a diner in this Minneapolis suburb. "You know, let them fight their own battles, for chrissakes. Why should we go over there and do it?"
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday April 17, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 57 words Type of Material: Correction
Presidential votes -- An article in Friday's Section A on voter reaction in Minnesota to the rising violence in Iraq said that in past presidential elections, Richard Nixon carried the state three times, Gerald Ford once and Ronald Reagan twice. Those results were for Iowa. Nixon won Minnesota once, in 1972. Neither Ford nor Reagan carried Minnesota.
The gravel-voiced retiree said the killing of U.S. troops was "making me sick." So after years of voting mostly Republican, she was leaning against backing Bush this year. "That's what's really been hurting me: Every day, it's a Marine, and it's from around here."
In Coon Rapids and other suburbs of Minneapolis and its twin city, St. Paul, the political damage that Bush has suffered because of the upsurge of violence in Iraq is unmistakable.
If those qualms persist, it could pose a significant threat to Bush's reelection hopes. Voters in these suburbs have become the key to carrying Minnesota, one of the closely contested states in the 2004 presidential race. And their views are apt to reflect those in similar communities that could be decisive in other crucial states.
"I would certainly expect what you're seeing in Minnesota to be mirrored in the suburbs of Chicago or Cleveland or Detroit or Philadelphia or Milwaukee," said Rhodes Cook, an election analyst who publishes a nonpartisan Washington newsletter on national voting trends.
Whoever wins those suburbs "is very likely to win the White House as well," he said. "It's critical."
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore defeated Bush in Minnesota by a surprisingly close 2.4%; Bush lost just four states by a narrower margin. So this year, both parties have made this vast state on the Canadian border -- with its prize of 10 electoral votes -- a top target.
Bush is heavily favored in rural Minnesota, apart from mining areas where organized labor is strong. His presumed Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, should get strong support in the urban core of the twin cities.
That makes political battlegrounds out of quiet suburbs like Anoka, just up the Mississippi River from Coon Rapids. And there, where a blast of warm air this week swept away the fierce northern winter, Iraq is very much on the minds of voters such as Beverly McDonald, 74, a retired bank mailroom supervisor.
"I don't think we really should have gone in there in the first place," she said on a walk to the bank to fetch coins to do laundry.
