Palin Pick Energizes GOP Base

Washington Post: Activists Say Socially Conservative Voters More Likely To Turn Out, Campaign Actively For Ticket

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Alec MacGillis.

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Bill and Sandra Goode were so worried that John McCain might pick a running mate who favored abortion rights that Bill called McCain's presidential campaign headquarters to warn against it. They prayed. And when the Republican senator picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom they had barely heard of but knew to be staunchly antiabortion, Sandra Goode said, "we knew our prayers had been answered."

The Goodes would have voted for McCain no matter what, but Palin lifted them to a new level of motivation. They called the volunteer McCain representative in their town of Surry, Va., offering any help they could.

"She's a real catalyst," said Bill Goode, 63, an electrician. "Sarah is the epitome of pro-life. You can tell how effective she is by the reaction she got. If she was someone who wasn't viewed as a threat to the abortionists, there wouldn't have been a response equivalent to this."

Palin's debut has invigorated the Republican base here in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, a battleground area in a top swing state, and one where GOP turnout depends heavily on evangelical Christians such as the Goodes, along with the many military families clustered around the Norfolk and Portsmouth bases.

The reaction has been remarkably instantaneous, with socially conservative voters who had barely heard of Palin electrified by the few facts they quickly learned: her longtime membership in the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination; her large family; her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest; her decision to carry to term her fifth child after learning he has Down syndrome; and her belief in teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools.

But the question facing Republicans here is whether their organization can match, and fully capitalize on, the enthusiasm provided by Palin with just two months left until Election Day. As Obama targets Virginia and its 13 electoral votes -- President Bush won the state with 54 percent of the vote in 2004 -- he has built a formidable organization, with 41 offices to McCain's nine, dozens more paid staff members, and far more time spent manning phone banks and going door to door.

GOP activists report with relief that socially conservative voters who might have stayed home on Election Day say they will turn out now, while others say they will campaign more actively for the ticket. Among those coming out of the woodwork, activists say, are some who have not been active before, such as parents of special-needs children who feel a bond with Palin. The reaction was slower for less-religious Republicans, including ones with military backgrounds who wondered about Palin's qualifications, but after her tough convention speech, many of them are also energized.

"Hearing her pro-life stance, her conservative values, her family orientation -- it has really resonated with the proletariat and caused people to say: 'Hey, I'm going to get involved here. This is someone I can relate with; this is someone that can win,'" said David Willis, an electrical engineer and GOP activist in Smithfield. "I don't want to imply the party's been limping this whole time, but with Sarah, McCain really emboldened it."

Interviews with Republican activists in the Hampton Roads area confirmed that the party is lagging in the organizational department, though most expressed confidence that, with the spark of Palin's debut, they have time to catch up. The deficit lies partly in the parties' differing approaches: Republicans generally invest less in get-out-the-vote efforts than Democrats, because they say they know who their base voters are and they know that those voters need less encouragement.

But this year the contrast is particularly sharp. Unlike Bush's 2004 campaign, which focused heavily on turnout operations, McCain has devoted most of his resources to ads, while Obama has emphasized organization as perhaps no Democrat before him.

Obama has made big gains in registering new Virginia voters, with 49,000 additions in August, 36 percent more than signed up in July. The campaign says it held 1,000 house parties in Virginia to watch Obama's convention speech, with many of the 13,000 attending also canvassing over the Labor Day weekend.

Because Virginia has been so reliably Republican in presidential elections for decades, Republicans here -- unlike in perennial swing states such as Ohio -- are unaccustomed to having to exert all that much effort. And until Palin burst on the scene, Republicans here said there just was not a lot of the energy needed to fuel a grass-roots operation, because of Bush's decline in popularity, lingering ambivalence about McCain and demoralization from recent GOP losses in the state.

"Everything was pretty lackluster," said Earl Hall, the volunteer representative for Surry, who is far more excited now that Palin's in the picture: "She's right good-looking -- that's all I need to know."

In Isle of Wight County, a GOP stronghold just west of Portsmouth and home to the ham capital of Smithfield -- Bush won 63 percent of the vote there in 2004 -- the county party had gone defunct until last month, when several previous members and several new arrivals decided that, with the election coming up, they ought to resurrect it.

They placed an ad in the paper and called 100 names on the old membership list. A dozen people expressed interest, and they now meet every other week. On Thursday, they organized a house party to watch McCain's speech. Thirteen people showed up to watch and dine on snacks with American-flag paper plates and napkins. Their reaction to McCain's speech was muted, with some of the loudest applause coming when he mentioned Palin.

They also plan to set up a table at the county fair, but otherwise their outreach has been limited -- a few sessions of phone-calling and a few door-to-door canvasses by a couple of core members, during which they distributed generic GOP literature because they have not yet received any McCain brochures. They have had trouble getting bumper stickers and have run out of lawn signs. They still need to assign captains for most of the county's dozen precincts, and will not expect anything from those volunteers except manning the polls on Election Day -- unlike the Obama campaign, which expects precinct captains to spend weeks finding ways to reach out to their neighbors.

John Brannis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and military contractor employee who volunteered for the Bush campaign in the county in 2004, was not concerned, saying that calling voters or knocking on their door was not worth the effort -- Republicans had done fine in 2004 despite doing little of that. It is more effective, he said, to chat with people on his daily rounds, like the older woman who asked him to pump her gas the other day.

"People here know that if you want to know about Republican Party, talk to J.B. Brannis," he said. "It needs to be about personal relationships."

Cristina Morris, who moved to Isle of Wight last year from Fairfax County with her husband, an officer with the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, was surprised that she has wound up as the chairwoman of the resurrected county party. "We didn't think we'd be running it, but someone has to do it," she said.

The picture is similar around the area. In Surry, Hall has not gone door to door yet, saying that "it's too expensive driving around." "If people can't get the information they need now with all the media floating around, then they've got a problem," he said. In Suffolk, Steve Trent, a salesman leading the volunteer effort, is holding off on canvassing until he has literature for all the GOP candidates on the ticket. But, he said, Palin's instant celebrity will overcome any delays.

"What woman do you know who could shoot a moose, field-dress it and serve it?" he said. "This has really energized the conservative side of the house."

Gail Gitcho, a McCain spokeswoman in Virginia, said that the campaign is satisfied with its progress and that Palin's selection was already having palpable effects, most visibly in an increase in the number of women volunteers turning out to make phone calls at the campaign's offices. "We have a lot more work to do but we're feeling very good about Virginia," she said.

How much evangelical Christian support McCain would have drawn without Palin is open to debate. It was in Virginia Beach, home to Pat Robertson's Regent University, that he gave his 2000 speech labeling Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." But he later reconciled with them and impressed evangelical Christians with his performance at a forum at the Saddleback mega-church in California last month.

Palin's appeal among evangelical Christians may not be universal. Some may be put off by her overt religious references, as when she called the war in Iraq a "task that is from God" at an Alaska church and asked members of the congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline she is trying to get built. Many younger evangelicals have elevated issues such as global warming, which Palin does not think is necessarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

But Charles W. Dunn, dean of the government school at Regent University, said that her stances on "family values" issues "trump the others" and that evangelical Christians have been "transformed into worker bees" as a result of her selection. "Early returns suggest an all-out embrace. She has created a buzz like I've never seen before," he said. "These folks felt hopeless, and all of a sudden they've been given hope overnight and beyond measure."

Peyton White, a McCain activist in Newport News, concurred, saying that she would feel much more comfortable now in approaching other members of her church to help campaign, because they identify with Palin and see her as paving the way for others like them. "People see her as one of them," she said. "There's a feeling that this is something all of us could be transformed into, because she's done it now."

[starleo146]

Posted by mascarponi at 08:13 AM : S

Well here we go again, the republipigs never have to answer a thing, they are prohibited I guess by charter, we are republicans and we do not answer to anyone for our deeds it is us so leave us alone

[starleo146]

ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by IOWEIGN at 08:48 AM : Sep 09, 2008

Now I understand why she let the shef goand she let us believe she was saving Alaska money OOOPS another lie Sarah or did you think you were talking in tongues and we wouldn''t understand

[wakeup60]

She doesn''t energize me.Women of America-study the issues really well-just "BECAUSE SHE IS A "WOMAN"-DOES NOT CONSTITUTE ANYTHING! STUDY EVERYTHING AOBUT HER-BEING A REPUBLICAN IS NOT "THE" REASON TO VOTE IN THE WRONG "RIGHT" DIRECTION/READ AND EDUCATE YOURSELVES/SHE IS "NOT THE REASON"TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN- NO SECOND QUESSING ABOUT PALIN-COMMOM SENSE AND ONE''S "GUT" INSTINCT IS "ALL" IT TAKES TO KNOW SHE IS "NOT" "THE" ONE "WOMEN" IN AMERICA-SHE MAY THINK SHE''S A PIT BULL W/LIPSTICK & "TEAR" UP DC-WITH HER SIDEKICK "MCBUSH"-OUR NATION NEEDS PUT BACK TOGETHER,GIVEN A POSITIVE-CORRECTED DIRECTION AFTER BUSH/CHANEY-NOT TORN APART & PUT "BACK ON TRACK-IN THE SAME DIRECTION"/THERE ARE MORE THAN 18 MILLION OF CLINTON SUPPORTERS THAT WON''T BE FOOLED BY "LIPSTICK" ON A "BULLY" PIT BULL/DEPLORABLELY DISPARAGING WOMEN IN GENERAL TO ASSUME THAT "ALL" THE FEMALE GENDER WILL RACE TO THE POLLS & PULL HER LEVER/-DON''T BE STUPID!BE AN EDUCATED,INTELLIGENT WOMAN-DON''T PUT WOMEN BACK A 100 YRS BY SUPPORTING HER-ASSUREDLY PULLING THE RIGHTS THAT WE HAVE WORKED SO HARD-OUT FROM UNDERNEATH US ALL.ASSUMING ALL WOULD DROP THEIR STRONG BELIEFS AND NOT VOTE FOR THE "BEST" FOR THE U.S.-GIVE US A BREAK!A PALIN VOTE-IS "1" SCAREY VOTE-IF SHE WERE TO BECOME PRESIDENT TODAY-JUST STUDY HER,HER "REAL" PAST AND WHAT SHE "REALLY" STANDS FOR. "OBAMA/BIDEN ''08"

[macusweil]

And I thought Obama was the chosen one?

Go to youtube to watch this wacky video from Palin''s own church .. as they talk prophecy for Sarah..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k84m2orSOaM&NR=1

[ioweign]

ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

[tapsettle]

GOP energetic statements:
"Yay, she will ensure we keep torturing"
"Yay, she will help keep our troops busy killing abroad"
"Yay, she will keep threatening other countries"
"Yay, she will hate and provoke Russia lots"
"Yay, she will keep us headed for the international gutter"

[oneworldusa]

Palin wants to ''protect lives'' so McCain can keep them in Iraq for 100 years. I will not vote for anyone who would jeopardize my right to medical privacy.

[edjaffe2]

Unlike former President Bill Clinton, who ran as a centrist and won my vote, the Obama/Biden ticket is extreme, comprised of the most liberal and the 3rd-most liberal Senators in the country. As such, they don''t even represent their own party. These guys come off as arrogant, elitist, and out-of-touch with ordinary Americans. McCain and Palin appear to be sincere, level-headed, independent thinkers with a deep love of country and real accomplishments. For them, "Country First" is not just a slogan. I trust them. I don''t see how they can lose...

[germany76]

Faizal3 --

You really, truly, want to discuss religion in light of B. Hussein Obama''s 20-year membership (two decades!) in a church ruled over by a sick, twisted, racist screwball named Jeremiah Wright? ("God bless America? No, no, no -- God &*&# America!")

Your audacity overwhelms me; humility (and common sense) ostensibly not a part of your ability to cerebrate!

McCAIN/PALIN 2008!

[germany76]

I am quite pleased that you selected Sarah for VP, Senator McCain. While I was planning on voting for you anyway, now I can do so with passion . . . and a big smile on my face!

McCAIN/PALIN 2008!

[rodneyt74]

If America puts Palin one step from president they are stupid.. She doesn''t have the education to take on that. I mean if the BS in journalism is good enough to run the free world why then do we even need master degrees in anything.. Geezzz We should just start people right out of high school at designing our buildings and shoot.. someone with GED could start designing our new electric cars.. If she is qualified to run the free world then surely someone with GED can design electric cars.. Get real people, this is for real, this is our lives and kids future.. 6 years in and out of community colleges to get a 3 year degree in of all things journalism gives you enough education to understand world economics get real america.. This isn''t american idol..

And that doesn%u2019t say thing about how she things god wants us in Iraq killing people.. How you can think god wants america in war is nuts..

And you can say what you want about Obama but what I just said about Palin is all true.. Her education can be looked up and her belief on god and Iraq can be verified by the video of her speaking to her church..

[faizal3-2009]

Posted by BLACKSHAFT- at 10:38 PM : Sep 08, 2008

We all know McCain is a Muslim. I saw him sneak into my mosque last Friday to perform his prayers. After his prayers were over, he sneaked out, carrying his Qur''''an hidden beneath his robes. Please do not tell anyone because his political enemies will try to use it against him.

[jolsonbear]

Palin energizes the gop BASE

THE BASE = Al-Qa''ida

[navvet2]

%u201CFor it before you were against it? I mean you can%u2019t just make stuff up. You can%u2019t just recreate yourself. You can%u2019t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren%u2019t stupid.%u201D
These are Obama''s own words. Of course, he was talking about himself.

Against the surge and now says it was Joe''s idea?
Against offshore drilling, now says he''s for it?
For gun control, now says he ain''t messin'' with guns?

Sounds like Billy from the song Razzle Dazzle ''em from the musical Chicago!

No, the American voters aren''t stupid and BHO will find that out in November when they send him back to Chicago!

[faizal3-2009]

Palin''s Pastor, Ed Kalnins, makes Rev. Wright look like the Pope. Here is what the Rev. Kalnins has taught her and what she repeats.

She says terrorism against Jews is part of God''s plan because they refuse to accept Jesus as their savior; that the Palestinians killing Jews is part of God%u2019s plan.

She asks her congregation to "pray for the oil pipeline."

She says Alaska has a special place in God''s plan to save it during the "End Times."

She used State fund to transport kids during church outing;

She says the war in Iraq is part of "God''s plan."

She says gaye people can be converted and become straight;

She has said when the spirit moves her, she %u201Cspeaks in tongues.%u201D

She believes in %u201Cfaith healing.%u201D

These are just a few of her extreme statements.

She asked the city librarian to ban various books as not being Christian enough.

Is she a nut-job, or what?

You can find all this for yourself, just Google: Palin''s Church, Palin and the Jews, Palin and the Iraq war, etc.

[mensarino]

Palin is a wild-eyed, right wing, religious wackjob and shortly the novelty will wear off and all but the fringe will see her for the cartoon that she is.

[rodneyt74]

LOL who knows what sarah palin is for.. She won''t answer any questions..

I would love for someone to ask her why it took 6 years to get a 3 year degree in journalism?? and if she thinks that is enough education for V.P.? and if so how is that a good example for young adults in school..

I personally think this is a joke and america is looking really bad to rest of world, that this is suppose to be the 2nd best we have to offer for leader of free world with basic Bachlor degree in journalism.

[sjw1253]

BLACKSHAFT

You are a disgrace to the American dream. Your discriminatory rhetoric is sickening and frightening as we see lots of bullstuff being repeatedly spewed to try to convince people of a bunch of lies about Barack Obama.

If you cannot get your candidate elected without all of the lies - you should just give up... Try a taste of truth and stop spewing all of this bullstuff. It is totally transparent and obvious and I am sick and tired of reading such rubbish.

Stop throwing scare tactics and lies...

[sjw1253]

Personally, I think that Ms. Palin is a liar...

I don''t believe the story that her 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant. I think (after hearing that she was taken out of school for 5 months around the same time her "brother" was born) that S.P. faked a pregnancy to hide her daughter''s "condition"...

I will be interested to see how this so called "pregnancy" plays out as I believe that Bristol Palin is the actual mother of the 4 month old and that instead of being pregnant she is actually post partum...

I have no hard facts but I am very suspicious as I do not trust either John McCain and I especially do not trust a "candidate" who is afraid to give inteviews and face real scrutiny.

Anyone can read speeches after long days of practice and coaching - but they have not had her memorize enough yet to give interviews that require her to do anything but read or recite memorized rhetoric...

[oldwhiteguy1]

About the bridge...
She favored it to get votes, now, she denounces it to get votes.
About pork...
She favored it to get votes, now she denounces it to get votes.

Thats the change the Republicans value.

Obama/Biden 08-12