The Lucy Show

Vaughn Road in Montgomery is notable for its high concentration of churches, and its seemingly higher concentration of red-brick-and-hedges subdivisions, sporting names like Sturbridge Commons, Sturbridge Plantation, and Melrose. You drive past a spire; you drive past a fountain outside a home. You drive past a sign praising God's works; you drive past a housing development that looks like it was built on a golf course. If any part of the cradle of the Confederacy can be called genteel, this is it.

I'm at one of these churches -- Vaughn Forest Baptist -- a little before 10 a.m., waiting for Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley to appear and vote. Two local television stations, Alabama Public Television and a photographer wait with me, a few feet outside the door. People inside the church are holding the door for those entering and exiting.

"At least we have some civility in this election," an older man says as he walks away.

An older gentleman, bald and wearing glasses approaches the media, his wife (I think) next to him.

"Who's the celebrity?" he asks.

No one in the media crowd answers.

"Lucy Baxley's coming to vote here," I offer.

"Oh crap," he says.

"Hush!" his wife says with a smile.

"S---!" he yells, as he gets closer to the Baptist Church.

We think it's over, but he turns back. "Can I come out and throw something at her?" he adds, before being pulled farther into the building.

The other voters aren't so demonstrative. There's a larger stream of people moving in and out of the building than there was before. A few minutes later, Baxley, wearing a purple pantsuit and carrying a black and white umbrella, steps out of her car, and we all do the 25-yard-journalist dash.

Baxley is poised and smiling. Her manner and her clothing bring Baxley's successful real estate career to mind. Asked about her relatively low poll numbers, she says "Today is the poll that counts," and adds "I am totally at peace about it." If she's elected, she says, the first thing she'll do is revoke annual property tax assessments. If she's not, "I don't know what I'll do," but "life has so many opportunities."

And she's relieved it's over, she adds.

She walks toward the church, pausing before the entrance to do another television interview. Her husband Jim Smith stands away. I ask if he's glad the campaign is over.

"I'm glad," he laughs. "I'm glad, I'm glad. Yes."

Baxley walks past Patrick Cook as he exits the church's voting station. He says it was a "very dirty" campaign. Cook is feeling the "carryover" from "Washington," and wants a plan for Iraq that is neither stay-the-course nor full withdrawal, but a "third way."

Asked how he voted, he says "Very carefully."