In West Babylon, a Donald Trump write-in

Stanley M. Berger, 66, a steam fitter from West Babylon, walked to the school administration building there to conserve his one-fifth of a tank of gas and waited 15 minutes on a line that stretched out the door into the frigid night to cast a protest vote: a write-in for Donald Trump.

“Better than the two running,” he said.

He blamed Romney for moving his personal wealth and other people’s jobs overseas and called Obama glib but underperforming.

“What’s he actually done?” Berger asked, and answered himself in the next breath: “Nothing.”

Even the health care bill that many point to as the president’s signature accomplishment? Especially that. “Garbage,” Berger said. “The sons and grandsons are going to wind up paying for his folly.”'

He recognized that Trump’s chances of winning were exceedingly slim but said he’d felt obligated to turn out anyway, if only to show his dismay. “If you don’t vote, you’re wasting time,” he said. “You’re just a bump on a log.”

Donna DiMezza, 44, a teacher who lives in West Babylon and was waiting on the line, said she blamed the president for “economic turmoil” and said she would vote for Romney.

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While she said the gap was closing between Democratic and Republican platforms, she said the conservative values espoused by most Republican candidates were right for the country.

“The country has lost the traditional values it was founded on,” she said. “Everything is accepted — there needs to be boundaries."