What small-town America thinks of Sarah Palin | Salon News
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.”