Notes on Seeing Sarah Palin, October 13

Governor Sarah Palin was the latest national political figure to make an appearance in Richmond, speaking at a rally this afternoon at the Richmond International Raceway just outside the city limits in Henrico County.

As you might expect, this was an overwhelmingly white crowd dressed (as per the suggestion of the Virginia McCain-Palin campaign) largely in red, to symbolize support for keeping Virginia a red state.

Even though the event was held at a NASCAR track, this was not a boisterously angry, bitter crowd. Yes, there were a few people with some extreme signs, including my personal favorite linking Barack Obama to the Antichrist, another saying vote for the “vet and the mommy, not the socialist and the commie,” and a couple of signs linking Obama to the “Chicago machine.” A few folks also had t-shirts of Obama saying “socialism with a smile.”

But I didn’t see any overtly racist signs, or even the concentration of Confederate flags that one usually sees on these grounds at state fair times. I did see a lot of enthusiastic signs welcome Sarah Palin, including a “Team Sarah” booth linking the campaign to the fight against breast cancer. A lot of families with children were there, as well as many retired-age folks. There were even one or two African-Americans wearing McCain-Palin buttons.

So there was not a lot of frothing of the mouth going on at this rally. Or, perhaps Sarah Palin did not give the crowd enough red meat to stir up hostile emotions; her stump speech didn’t include references to Bill Ayers or imply Obama was a terrorist. She did include a line about “voter fraud” which got a loud reaction, and said she wished just one time Obama would say he wanted to win in Iraq. But she didn’t go after him in the personal way some might have expected after the rhetoric of the past week.

Palin as expected relied on NASCAR metaphors at the start of the speech to claim the race is not over and to expect a close finish, but the more effective tool in connecting with the crowd was her bringing along country star Hank Williams Jr. to sign the national anthem and then an original composition about the “McCain-Palin tradition.”

Hank took the stage and yelled (in the manner of Monday Night Football openings) “Are you ready for some Sarah?” He then delivered a horribly off-key rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, but few seemed to mind. He got a better reaction with his original song, which attacked the “left-wing media” while crediting Palin with fixing Alaska’s “condition” (rhymes with “McCain-Palin tradition,” get it?)

The funniest moment of the afternoon came as a result of the sound system not being cranked up loud enough. People at the back of the crowd, near where I stood, had a hard time making out Palin’s speech. So the crowd started up a chant of “louder, louder.” Palin paused, then said she hoped those “protestors” at least thanked the military for giving them the right to protest.

In fact there weren’t any protesters inside the grounds at all, and in response the crowd said “no, no!” A pretty funny moment, though the sound did get a little louder after that.

I came half-expecting to find a riled up, rabid crowd, but didn’t. What actually impressed me most about this rally is the though that within this demographic of hard core Republican voters, having a woman candidate to identify with is a breakthrough. The little girls growing up in Republican families now have someone to point to and admire. That particular person may be absolutely frightening to many of us, but Palin’s candidacy might just have unexpectedly positive consequences in terms of the understanding of gender within the more conservative segments of the population.

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