Super Tuesday States a Study In Contrasts; After Gloom of New Hampshire, Economic Picture Is More Varied
In an election driven by pocketbook issues, the economic conditions of the states in the South's Super Tuesday sweepstakes present a very different picture from the recession-battered landscape of the nation's first primary state, New Hampshire. Job conditions in general are stable, and the Southwest, in particular, is showing new signs of life.</br></br>Within the Sun Belt, however, there are important economic differences, none more marked than those between the region's two giants, Texas and Florida.</br></br>Texas, the only part of the United States that was ever an independent nation, continues to go its contrary way, slowly crawling out of the first wave of the real estate recession that later washed over much of the rest of the country. Florida, on the other hand, is suffering its own real estate and banking collapse at the same time that hard times elsewhere in the country are cutting into its giant tourist industry.</br></br>How these varied economic conditions will affect the fortunes of the candidates on Tuesday remains uncertain, however.</br></br>In New Hampshire, which propelled Paul E. Tsongas to the front of the Democratic pack, 64 percent of those responding to a Voter Research & Surveys (VRS) exit poll said they thought the national economy was in poor shape. A little farther south, Tsongas got another boost from Democrats in Maryland, where 53 percent of those questioned in exit polls said the economy was in poor condition. In Georgia, where 50 percent of those questioned by VRS declared the economy to be in poor shape - the lowest percentage of the three states - Bill Clinton got the nod from Democratic voters.