Sarah Palin's Future
Alaska's most valuable resource. Elon, North Carolina
Six thousand tickets were grabbed up in three hours for Sarah Palin's speech here at the baseball field of Elon University. An even larger crowd--9,000 inside, 3,000 outside--showed up across the state in Greenville a few days earlier. But impressive attendance isn't the half of it. What's extraordinary is the effect Palin has on crowds. "When she hits the stage audiences erupt and they don't calm down," says Republican senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who appeared with Palin here and in Greenville. "I've been with Bush, Clinton, 41--and I've never seen anything like this."
Her speech--a standard stump speech extolling John McCain and zinging Barack Obama--hardly matters. People not only want to see her, Burr says, "they want to touch her. Their perception is she's one of them. It has nothing to do with ideology. It's not about Christian conservatives. It goes far beyond all that."
Whatever else the 2008 presidential campaign may produce, it has created a new Republican star--Palin--a political natural who's at ease in front of crowds and whose cheerfulness, self-confidence, and optimism haven't slackened in the face of unusually harsh--and often highly personal-- attacks by Democrats and the mainstream media.
Palin can't explain the exuberant crowds or is too modest to try. She "didn't know what to expect" once she began campaigning as McCain's vice presidential running mate, she told me last week. The enthusiasm is "encouraging and energizing," she says, and "the most pleasant surprise has been independents and Democrats who've shown such great enthusiasm."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/718iurcu.asp
