Volunteers' Response to Sarah Palin Pick
Posted by: Saulo G. Londono | 08/29/2008 9:17 PM
John McCain's decision to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate is sending shockwaves through the blogosphere. I personally enjoyed reading Dan Schnur's take on the pick, where he breaks down the pros and cons and what the McCain campaign was probably thinking as they made this decision.
I've been waiting for a chance to write my first post for OCBlog (I've been blogging for the National blog) for a while, and now I have the perfect opportunity.
My friends and co-workers weren't surprised to hear that I didn't get any sleep last night. As the GOTV Director for the county party I think I have a good sense of how passionate our activists/volunteers feel about this election. We are putting together a very ambitious GOTV effort, so we've been out there pounding the pavement for a while now. While it hasn't been difficult to find enough volunteers to get the job done, there has been a sense of "duty" that's been associated with most of our activists' sense of volunteerism lately. Sure, there are some die hard McCain-iacs that have been excited since the day he won the primary, but for the most part it's safe to say that the majority of our activists have been patiently waiting for McCain's VP before deciding to what extent they would be working on behalf of the ticket. Thus, for the interests of doing my job well, I have been anxiously waiting to hear who McCain's VP would be. After all, it's safe to say that if McCain would have picked Joe Lieberman or a pro-choice candidate, then our job would have instantly become a lot more challenging.
For those of us who pulled an all-nighter last night, it was a dramatic evening. It began with the possibilities (in my head) of: Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Joe Lieberman, or a surprise pick. As the night progressed we started hearing reports that Romney was no longer headed to Dayton, which instantly crushed my excitement; not because I was a huge Romney fan, but because I knew that the activists/volunteers would be energized if Mitt was picked. With that said, I began to worry. Hours later we started hearing reports that it wouldn't be Pawlenty either. At this point I had a minor freak out. I was already thinking of ways to build enthusiasm for the McCain/Lieberman ticket among our volunteers. That task would be as challenging as building excitement for a Republican candidate in the middle of San Francisco (you need a George Andrews for that, which fortunately we do).
As the sun rose, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. We began hearing reports that McCain might pick a surprise candidate. At this point I didn't really care whom: as long as it wasn't Lieberman, I would be happy.
Then came the pleasantly unexpected news. Not only did McCain pick a surprise candidate, but he picked the woman from Alaska! We've heard a bit about her and we've known that she has a great story to tell (child in the military; child with Down Syndrome), but come on...we never really thought she had a serious shot at the ticket, did we?
So I got ready and went to work. By the time I made it in the office (one of seven county-wide offices we've opened in the last month) we had a dozens of new messages. As my intern and I went through the messages, all we could do was smile....
"...wasn't planning on voting for him, but now he's got my vote! How can I help??"
"...she's a Conservative! I can't believe it! I want to help, call me back!"
"...unbelievable choice! Hit it out of the park!"
and my favorite string of messages went something like this:
"....was a Hillary Clinton supporter, I have never voted Republican, I can't believe I'm saying this....but how can I help?? I want to volunteer! I want to see a woman in the White House!"
The calls didn't stop there. They continued all day long. We had double the amount of volunteers in our office today than we normally do, and it's the Friday before RNC Convention. As Dan Schnur so eloquently describes in his op-ed, the Conservative base's support for McCain has so far appeared "more dutiful than heartfelt". Well, not anymore. What I saw and heard today is the heartbeat of a new movement in the Republican Party. Regardless of what happens in this election, I'm confident Sarah Palin will be a leader in the future of the GOP.
If today was any indication of what we can expect out of our volunteer base for the next two months, then the Democrats are in serious trouble. As I continue to ponder, I can't think of any other candidate (out of the finalists) who would have created such enthusiasm within our base; not even Romney.
Long story short...today was a good day to be a Republican.
Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
Count me in as one more person that was sitting on the fence re: McCain. There was little doubt that he would get my vote, but I was not excited (fearful of an Obama Presidency, but no real love for McCain.)
When I woke up and heard that Romney was out, I puttered around with my early morning routine, feeling a bit down. Then I heard the news, that Gov. Palin had been selected. WOW!
I was thankful that the conservatives now have a reason to get excited about this race.
I think Gov. Palin brings a variety of strengths to the ticket. Personally, I would never vote a ticket based on gender or race (Im a policy/judgement person)....but I love that we not only have a woman on our ticket, but a strong woman. I woman that is not shrill or abrassive, a woman that is feminine and warm...enough so that she doesnt demand the right to rip a child, limb-by-limb out of her womb...but embodies what God intended for women to be!
As a lifelong Republican, I too have gone from lukewarm to thrilled! My only question is whether we can flip the ticket to Palin-McCain?
America is an image driven country. Most of our decisions are based upon the primary images that we see – the images we see on television and in magazines. The “good old boy” republicans know exactly what they are doing by picking Palin as the Vice Presidential candidate of their party. Republicans know that by putting a young woman next to McCain, Americans would buy into the image that they are seeing. I call it the Hugh Heffner effect. Isn’t it ironic that they would only campaign together? He attempted to exploit Paris Hilton but she wasn’t having it. I ask all of you to look beyond the image, look beyond the cheerleader personality, look beyond the fact that she has five children, look beyond the fact that she has a child with special needs. Get to know the person before you make a judgment. Look deep, listen and learn what Sarah Palin really stands for and you will find that she is closer to George Bush than McCain himself. We cannot stand for four more years of the same old politics!
Kay-
The Democrat party has been selling this "image" package to the American people through the nomination of Barack Obama. You and the rest of your liberal friends forgot that Americans have a tough case of A.D.D. and will flock to the next "new thing" as quickly as they did for the one before. The strategy of picking Joe Biden, someone who represents anything BUT change, was a poor one; it opened up the field for our party to steal your cheap message of change and turn it against you by our pick of Sarah Palin. Deal with it. You tried to play the "image" game and you lost. Now please stop crying about it. Sarah is a reformer, and she is a strong, exciting woman. You must now deal with the fact that your party was out-maneuvered and out-smarted, again. There's always 2016...
Is Palin ready to lead the country if John McCain catches pneumonia during his inauguration speech and dies a month later (it's happened before)?
Do you want someone with absolutely no national experience leading the country? Who do you think she would pick as her VP, another John McCain? Heck no, she would pick Rick Santorum or somebody like that. Then you would have the blind leading the blind.
That's the only thing that matters when evaluating Palin. What kind of job would she do as preseident? Would she put Air Force One on eBay? Fire the White House chef? See how silly these things are when you put them in persepective?
So I'm going to go w-a-y out on a limb and flatly say that Palin is unqualified to be President of the United States. Before you get in an uproar about Obama's relative level of experience just remember that he has been campaigning for almost twenty months and beat the heir-apparent, Hillary Clinton. He has been on the national scene for four years. And he has picked a VP nominee who, if not exactly a Hockey Mom, is a great family man who has decades of very relevant experience and sound judgment that Obama can tap. Isn't that the argument conservatives used to rebut complaints that Bush didn't have enough experience? Cheney's the backstop?
So the next question you have to ask if you accept the reality that Palin is unqualified to become VP is what the decision to choose her says about John McCain. Answer: Nothing good.
Thanks, Kay, for the insights. The Obama Campaign will emerge from this weird twilight zone soon. Palin can't be kept from the press indefinitely. The McCain Campaign's willingness to resort to the sleaziest of politics this week will result in a backlash, too. Patience!
Bob
Hey Bob, the more you keep up with the comparison between our #2 and your #1, the more you highlight how Barack Obama is utterly unqualified to be at the top of your ticket.
You may care about Barack's campaign beating Hillary Clinton's campaign, but no ordinary American believes that running a campaign qualifies someone to lead our country. Actually, the mere mention by the Obama campaign that his campaigning experience qualifies him for the #1 slot, shows how off-guard they have been caught by the Palin pick.
You can make up all kinds of scenarios in which Palin may have to take over the Presidency in the first couple of months, but the fact of the matter is that she will be ready if/when the tragedy occurs because she'll be trained and briefed enough by then. Compare that with, not the possibility, but the reality of an Obama presidency. Obama is not qualified to be President and no amount of campaigning will change that. He needs to learn to GOVERN. Further, Palin's grit and character is exactly what ordinary Americans are looking for in their President, and that's why you see the astronomical approval rating that she has received across party lines.
Overall, McCain's pick of Palin was brilliant and has proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for Obama's self-aggrandized "coronation".