Gray Vote No Longer Red

Anne Hull: SUN CITY CENTER, Fla. -- The sign over the woodworking shop says "Sawdust Engineers," and there was a time when the men now bent over the tools used to put on ties or make sales calls, building their pensions so they could one day leave the rat race for this warm world of unbroken sunshine.

"Retirement is the best!" says Jerry Decker, 73, one of the Sawdust Engineers tinkering in the wood shop at this over-55 retirement community of 19,000 residents outside Tampa.

But the tranquillity of palm trees and wine gatherings that sustained Decker's dreams all those years in the snow has been upended by the financial crisis. Even here in paradise, nothing is for sure anymore.


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