For the third time in about 20 minutes, Sen. Barack Obama’s still image filled the projector screen at the Linn County Republican Headquarters. The 20 or so people gathered for the debate watch party sighed in frustration as a staffer apologized and went to get the video going again.

“Someone want to go up there and draw a mustache on him,” a man in the back of the dark room joked. Amid the subsequent giggles another male voice was heard: “Or a target.” The first man responded back that “that’d be good too.”

Almost immediately a female voice rang out with the authority of an admonishing mother, commanding the men to “stop it.”

The female voice belonged to Joni Scotter, who is supporter and volunteer for Sen. John McCain, but said that she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“I’m not an Obama person, but I don’t believe in anyone doing anything like that to a candidate — ever,” Scotter said after the watch party. “It’s simply not called for.”

Scotter feels so strongly about respect being given to the people running for our nation’s highest office that her admonishment contradicted her own deep-set fears about a possible Obama presidency.

“I’m very frightened,” she admitted. “I’m frightened because I can’t believe a word Obama says — not even a teenie-weenie word. I do think he is a Socialist. He ran for the Senate, but yet he’s never been there because he’s been running for president. He has no experiece and when he votes, he votes ‘present.’ All of that, all of that scares me. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t a candidate for the United States of America.”

Media coverage of people who have made crass and sometimes violent remarks at campaign events isn’t difficult to find, but Scotter believes what’s missing from that discussion is people like her: People who don’t support Obama’s candidacy, but also do not tolerate such comments.

“Candidates run because they believe in what they are all about,” Scotter said. “They run because they want to be president and believe they have a vision. I may not like [Obama's] policies or his vision, but he is a person.”

It’s the same principle that she applies to volunteers who phone bank and canvass on behalf of candidates or specific issues.

“I was in New York and walking down the street with a reporter,” she said. “Some lady handed me a brochure that was radical as can be. I told the lady, ‘Thank you so much,’ and put the brochure in my purse. The reporter looked at me like I lost my mind and later asked me why I did that.

“Well, I’ve gone door-to-door so many times. All you have to do is be polite and let [the volunteer] have a happy day. Why would you hurt somebody? The volunteers are doing these things because they believe in it. They are out there doing it because they care.”