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Politics on Cambria Street: A portrait of a diverse neighborhood

"We're voting for Hillary," Charles Lindsey says about himself and his friend Gregory McDowell as they sat on their Fairhill steps.

The stoop sitters on Cambria Street.
The stoop sitters on Cambria Street.Read moreSigne Wilkinson / Editorial Cartoonist

"We're voting for Hillary," Charles Lindsey says about himself and his friend Gregory McDowell as they sat on their Fairhill steps.

They were among a dozen people I interviewed along four blocks of Cambria Street on both sides of Germantown Avenue.

For those who think that's the way all of solidly Democratic North Philadelphia feels, walk a few steps farther. On Germantown Avenue and Cambria, Josh Rembert says, "I can't vote for Hillary."

He then veers wildly from the Democratic script to call out Donald Trump's immigration policy and business background as the reasons why he'd vote for the GOP ticket. That is, if he could vote. As a recently released felon still on probation, he can't.

The Republicans might want to rethink their efforts to keep former felons from voting.

A little farther east on Cambria, longtime resident and grandmother of six Elizabeth Guittierrez slams "stupid Obamacare," which raised her family's health-care costs, and says she is not voting this year. She coolly describes both top contenders and their entourages as "a bunch of crooks."

She would have voted for the "more honest" Sen. Marco Rubio, she says.

There were two common themes on law enforcement, expressed in different ways. Of the people I encountered, all (except the former felon Rembert) volunteered that police need to be more respectful of black and brown citizens both in the neighborhood and throughout the city.

At the same time, as one 14-year-old named Santiago says, the local crime "is disgusting. We're killing ourselves."

The good news for police is that several cited Capt. Michael Cram as a positive addition to the 25th District. Most were sympathetic to the police officers' difficulties in dealing with the local drug trade.

What would help improve their lives most? "More jobs," nearly everyone said. No one raised other pet DNC platforms such as climate change, though they are clearly hoping for a change of climate in their neighborhood.

Signe Wilkinson is the editorial cartoonist for the Inquirer and Daily News. signe@signetoons

@wilkins