Friday, September 05, 2008
Palin excites McCain supporters
About 50 people met at Tanglewood Holiday Inn to hear John McCain's acceptance speech.
Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times
McCain supporters cheer in Roanoke as they watch him speak during the GOP National Convention.
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-->One day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the first woman to accept the Republican vice-presidential nomination -- and as the gun smoke from her sharply pointed speech still hung heavily in the public consciousness -- Roanoke supporters of Sen. John McCain gathered to watch their candidate accept his nomination at the Republican National Convention.
The new vice-presidential nominee remained at the front of the minds of many people Thursday night.
"Are you excited about this Republican ticket?" U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, asked the group of about 50 people who watched the broadcast of the convention's closing night at the Holiday Inn at Tanglewood. He urged attendees to rally behind both his ongoing congressional campaign and the race for the presidency.
Palin, Goodlatte offered, "has the spirit, knowledge and fortitude to have a great campaign for us and reach a lot of people who haven't been too excited."
Ben Gerrol, a recent Roanoke College graduate, agreed. He said he had not planned to attend Thursday's convention-viewing party until he saw former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's speech Wednesday night.
That, Gerrol said, "really kicked it off. That's when I felt like the energy broke. That's when I decided to come tonight.
"But Sarah Palin's making the ticket. There are a lot of people upset about it, but she energized the base."
He and his friend, Josh Kier of Roanoke, attended carrying a T-shirt that lampooned Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama's logo, altered to include the communist hammer and sickle symbols and displayed above the word "Obamunism."
Gerrol and Kier were on hand in support of McCain, but both said more conservative figures, particularly former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and now Palin, spoke directly to their political concerns.
Choosing Palin as his running mate, Gerrol said, "showed me McCain was serious about his base. It took her to convince people who are true conservatives that he was going to take them seriously."
Jack King of Roanoke said Palin's nomination proved that feminism was no longer exclusive to the left.
"My daughter has always asked me, 'Where are the conservative women?' " in politics, King recalled. "You can only point to Margaret Thatcher so many times. We have women ... but they're not real conservatives. She [Palin] is. There's no confusion about it. She's proud of it."
Jim Fields of Roanoke, clad in a shirt with an American flag design and a white straw cowboy hat refashioned to resemble Uncle Sam's headgear, reflected on politicians past and present.
"I just feel America is not living up to the great politicians we've had -- Kennedy, Eisenhower, Bush, although Bush is pro and con," Fields said. "I think McCain is going to have to carry the torch."
The crowds settled in to watch the video biography of McCain that preceded his speech, broadcast via Fox News onto a large-screen TV. The recounting of McCain's political service and his ordeals as a prisoner of war in Vietnam generated periodic responses from the crowd.
"John McCain is a lot of things," King said. "But I don't think anybody doubts he's a leader."
When the presentation ended, the hotel ballroom's chandeliers dimmed as, on-screen, McCain appeared from stage darkness to accept his nomination -- to cheers from the crowds of delegates in St. Paul, Minn., and to the sound of forceful, ice-crunching applause in Roanoke.
