Alma: Miami, Florida

To tell you the truth, I don't even know what I can tell you about Paul Rex that's useful. I didn't vote for him the first time around. Found him to be too close to Fidel Castro. You're born in Cuba, like me, you don't want another talker who will repeat the same business over and over again to convince you he's doing the best for you, even if you don't realize it, even if it hurts. I remember when he started getting popular down here - people were calling him the golden rule guy and a small group of people in Little Havana just came out and endorsed him. Just like they built that shrine to Elian, I think there's a house somewhere off Douglas with like a shrine to Paul Rex in it... supposedly it was in the kitchen of the house where he wrote his Credit Card Confessions paper.

My husband read that paper and practically started campaigning for Paul Rex. I've never been but my husband has been to the shrine-kitchen in Little Havana at least twice to see the spot. The first time, he visited it on the Saturday after he read the Credit Card Confessions. He tried to get me to go with him, but it was early, and I wake up early every weekday, and I need my Saturday mornings to rest up. Facundo gets home - Facundo, that's my husband - and he's like a changed man. He sits down at our kitchen table and starts writing out a new househod budget, and talks about our regular daily lives like it's a new battle and he doesn't want the powers that be to steal the money we're going to need to survive armageddon. Facundo can explain it better - not an armageddon but something the powers that be want us to think is armageddon.

Anyway, ever since Facundo got into this Paul Rex guy, he's lost interest in tv shows, started clipping couponds from the newspaper everyday and - our son is still a little pissed about this - he sold our plasma television to a neighbor. We've been having the best sex of my life, and he's always having these conversations with me about how things can get better if we take careful stock of what's important.