Gov. Palin dominates talk at RNC

ST. PAUL, Minn. — With Sarah Palin on every TV screen and on everyone’s mind, what are Republican National Convention attendees from the Lower 48 saying about the former Wasilla mayor?

At least among delegates milling around the Minneapolis Convention Center Wednesday, the sentiment is almost universally positive regarding John McCain’s pick as a running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.

“We thought it was a great choice,” said Kyle Handegard, an alternate delegate from Fargo, N.D.

Handegard said she’d heard of Palin before, and had even been invited to the pro-life Republican National Coalition for Life banquet where Alaska’s governor, even before she got the veep nod, had been set to receive the coalition’s 2008 Life of the Party award.

But she didn’t know much, Handegard said. That is, until the national spotlight fell on Alaska’s governor.

“She’s not going to let anybody run her over,” Handegard said of her impressions so far of Palin.

Tom Bramell, with the California delegation, said the Palin pick was superb.

“We think it’s a wonderful addition to the ticket,” Bramell said. “She’s going to make a huge difference for voters who were leaning,” and might have been undecided.

But, Bramell said, he doesn’t think Palin’s addition to the ticket was motivated by a play for female voters.

“I don’t think he chose her because she’s a woman,” Bramell said. He thinks McCain chose Palin because she’s a maverick, just like McCain.

Still, Bramell said, he wasn’t expecting Palin to be the choice.

“But after seeing some of her resumé, we are not surprised at all. She’s out of the same mold,” Bramell said.

Bramell’s wife, Nancy, was standing next to him, just as excited as he was.

“We are so excited,” she said.

Bob Tiemann, an alternate with the Nebraska delegation, said he was a little disappointed when Palin was chosen.

“I thought it was going to be [Mitt] Romney,” the former governor of Massachusetts who was also Tiemann’s pick in the party’s primary election, Tiemann said.

Speaking Wednesday afternoon Tiemann said he was looking forward to Palin’s speech that evening, though less out of a need to get to know her than a desire to see what he expected to be a first-rate speech.

“I think we already know the information about her,” Tiemann said.

Over with the Missouri contingent, Rich Magee, mayor of the city of Glendale on the outskirts of St. Louis said that, as a mayor, he’s excited about her time spent in executive positions.

“Mayors actually have to make executive decisions, unlike legislators, and they have to live with their decisions,” Magee said.

Magee said he’s also very pleased with Palin’s experience where it relates to energy issues.

“It’s laughable for people to argue about her experience when she was immersed in the energy issue,” as governor of Alaska, an oil and gas producing state, Magee said.

He said he even finds her personally appealing as a middle-class mom with a husband in a labor union.

“It’s where people have been saying the Republican Party should be going for years and then we actually pick somebody like that and they’re screaming about it,” Magee said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.