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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
From Minnesota to Mount Rushmore, the coffee shops and bars are buzzing with talk of whether the moose-hunting mom is fit to be vice president.
Editor's note: You can find Salon's complete coverage of Sarah Palin here.
By Dan Hoyle
Read more: Abortion, John McCain, Politics, News, Gay Marriage, Economy, Barack Obama, 2008 election, Sarah Palin, Dan Hoyle
Sept. 22, 2008 | There can be no doubt that the addition of Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket dramatically altered the presidential race, inspiring a once wary conservative evangelical base to get behind John McCain, and giving new momentum to his campaign. But how is Palin playing in towns across the American heartland?
In the weeks since the Republicans held their national convention, small-town coffee shops, laundromats and bars have been buzzing with talk about the "pitbull with lipstick" and her sudden rise to national prominence. In dozens of interviews across battleground states in the Midwest and Mountain West, where I've been traveling the last couple of weeks, voters' reactions to Palin were at times surprising. There were plenty of predictable responses: From Palin devotees, "She's got the balls and the moxie," and from across the divide, "She's less qualified than Spiro Agnew."
But toward the center of the continuum, where most expect this tight presidential race to be won or lost, views of Palin were more complicated. Women identified with the no-nonsense "sports mom" but were turned off by her hard-line views on abortion. Some voters found her far more exciting than either McCain or Barack Obama, but said she was wrong about gay marriage. Some said they ultimately couldn't go for a candidate so ignorant about foreign policy. Some thought she was just plain "hot."
Although much has been made of Palin's appeal to social conservatives, she has also excited many socially moderate swing voters who have been turned off by Obama, but also are unimpressed with McCain. Many voters seemed to define Palin exactly as the GOP has hoped -- a "mom, moose-hunter, maverick," as depicted in her video biography played at the convention.
Clearly, the Alaska governor's charisma and highly glossed image have made a splash. At the laundromat in Luverne, Minn., Gerald Hayman, 48, who used to work for a company that picks up and disposes of dead farm animals, but is currently unemployed, shared his opinions while folding his clothes. Hayman doesn't like McCain's talk of an open-ended commitment in Iraq, and fondly remembers the way "Bill Clinton brought the economy up," so he'd been leaning toward punching the Democratic ticket. But Palin has made him rethink that choice. "She don't mind stepping on people's toes, and maybe Washington needs that," Hayman said. He added, "And she's got a pretty nice pair of legs on her."
At the Powder River Stockman's Club in Broadus, Mont., a town of 451 people with no less than three taxidermists, S. Samuelson, 55, a second-generation rancher, tips his cowboy hat, nods and says: "She's hot." Between tales of breaking horses and negotiating the sale of calves, Samuelson admitted that he was very impressed by Palin, and said he even wished that she was running for president instead of McCain, whom he doesn't like. Exuding the "live and let live" philosophy common in Big Sky Country, he didn't share Palin's zeal against abortion and gay marriage -- "I don't care what they do" -- but he saw Palin as "kind of a fighter, who ain't scared to shake stuff up." That will probably win his vote, Samuelson said.
But at Stroker's Tavern in Huntley, Mont., John Cook, a Republican, saw it differently. "Palin is great for Alaska -- I'm enamored with her," said Cook, 58, who is a carpenter. "But being governor of Alaska, a rural state like Montana, it's still small-town politics. It doesn't prepare you for national politics. There are 20 cities in this country that have more people than Alaska!"
Near Keystone, S.D., the base of Mount Rushmore National Monument was an apt place to gauge the power of Palin mania. One way or the other, the November election will put a definitive crack in the white male monolith of the American presidency, as seen in the four 60-foot faces towering above. Here, Americans from all over pull up in their cars, trucks and R.V.s, and, not least because of gas prices, there was no shortage of opinions about the fraught presidential race.
"She'll put a match under McCain's butt!" huffed Gertrude Burke, 84, of Winslow, Mo. Her daughter Mary Burke, 62, shared her excitement, voicing common admiration of Palin as "down-to-earth, a mother, an outdoors woman ... and very well educated." At this her husband, Ken Burke, 64, piped in half-jokingly: "She has to be well educated, she's been to five different colleges!" Although Mary Burke is pro-choice, since the introduction of Palin she said she is now leaning toward the Republican ticket.
Some former supporters of Hillary Clinton expressed excitement about Palin -- but gender was secondary. To them, she seems a fresher, more maverick, more populist agent of change now than Obama (who has endured media scrutiny, including revelations and rumors about his past, for more than a year and a half). Although some don't share Palin's far-right positions on social issues, or weren't fully aware of them, they were willing to overlook that.
Next page: With Wall Street in meltdown and the economy tanking, how does Palin fit into the picture?
What small-town America is saying about Obama
