NORFOLK, Va. -- SuAnne Bryant is a self-described conservative - a "religious values" voter who opposes early withdrawal from Iraq.
Yesterday, she voted for Barack Obama.
"It's not so much a vote for him. It's a vote against Hillary," said Bryant, 40, who, like all voters in Virginia, could participate in either party's primary. Obama and Hillary Clinton, the two Democratic senators, are their party's presidential candidates.
Bryant and other conservatives in this region of southeastern Virginia - known for its large concentrations of evangelical Christians - described themselves yesterday as a movement without a candidate, or at least a candidate who could win.
For many, the choice in 2000 and 2004 was clear - George W. Bush. But this year, the Republican choice was between Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has often clashed with Christian conservatives, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose social views make him popular in the region but who was all but mathematically eliminated before Virginians went to the polls.
That left people such as Bryant with unappealing choices: cast a protest vote for Huckabee, swallow their doubts and support McCain or make a strategic vote for a Democrat they consider the lesser of all evils. "There's no fire in the belly for these [Republican] candidates," Bryant said.
Doris McFarlane, a 60-year-old homemaker from Chesapeake, Va., who said she votes strictly on evangelical values, voted for Huckabee yesterday. But she vowed to support Obama in the fall if McCain, an Arizona senator, wins the Republican nomination.
"I just don't feel it with him," McFarlane, wife of an evangelical pastor, said of McCain. "He's not strong on values."
McCain has had a stormy relationship with some conservatives: He once called leaders of the religious right "agents of intolerance" and has taken stances on issues such as campaign finance reform and illegal immigration that drew the ire of some in his party.
But if McCain, a decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, did not earn the enthusiastic support of some conservative voters here yesterday, he was expected to receive a boost from another big constituency in the Hampton Roads area: veterans and current military personnel.
"He's not a dove," said Mike Powers, 66, a Navy veteran from Chesapeake, who called the Democratic candidates "turncoats."
Weba Vanderploeg, a former Marine, said he disagreed with McCain on certain issues but voted for him because of the need for someone with strong military experience. "It would be the worst thing in the world right now" to withdraw from Iraq, he said.
Arnold Black, 65, a retired Chesapeake police officer, said he admired McCain's unflagging support for the U.S. mission in Iraq.
"McCain has always stated why he wanted to go to war, whether it's the popular opinion or not," Black said.
Both Huckabee and McCain campaigned here this week. McCain spoke at a rally in Richmond on Monday, while Huckabee visited evangelical churches in Richmond and Lynchburg.
But at precincts in Norfolk and Chesapeake yesterday, there were no campaign signs for McCain, and Huckabee signs seemed to be outnumbered by Obama and Clinton signs.
At a church in Norfolk, Craig Seifert handed out Huckabee literature and said that some voters expressed no passion for any of the candidates. "They were against somebody more than for somebody," he said.
josh.mitchell@baltsun.com