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Palin helps unite GOP in Twin Cities as Gustav stalls show

Dante Chinni

Posted: 09.01.2008 / 9:32 AM PDT

Sometime Monday, or maybe even Tuesday, the Republican National Convention will get under way in Minnesota, and when it does, Sarah Palin will have a lot of people there smiling. The Alaska governor may be a risky choice for Sen. John McCain’s running mate, but she could serve one very important role: uniting the GOP.

While there was much talk about the challenges that the Democrats faced going into their convention, the press had paid less attention to the problems the Republicans had – and they were substantive. In our more socially conservative Patchwork Nation communities, we heard much skepticism toward Senator McCain, with some even saying they might stay home instead of vote.

In the past few weeks, we have paid visits to Hopkinsville, Ky. (our “Military Bastion” near Fort Campbell), and Sioux Center, Iowa (our rural agricultural “Tractor Country” community). Both are solid Republican territory, and in both places, people told us McCain needed to solidify his conservative credentials with his vice presidential pick.

Governor Palin, it seems, helps greatly. She’s staunchly antiabortion, even in cases of rape and incest. She not only is a “lifelong hunter,” but she also knows how to fire an M-16. And she believes creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the public schools.

On gay rights, too, Palin is a strong social conservative. While she did veto a bill that would have prohibited extending domestic-partner benefits to gays and lesbians, the bill was likely to have been found unconstitutional anyway, and Palin said that as a matter of principle she favored the bill. She also favors a state constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Those hard conservative credentials seem to have already excited the Republican base. But they will most likely hurt in terms of bringing in supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As many have already noted, the big potential downside with Palin is experience. Republicans may argue that she has more “executive experience” than Sen. Barack Obama, but her national political experience and foreign-policy experience are slighter.

The McCain campaign has been hammering Senator Obama on experience for months – and has actually gained some traction on it. But now, that line of attack seems to be, at least, severely hampered.

We ran the Palin selection by a number of our Patchwork Nation communities and heard a lot of people still in the process of making a decision.

In Nixa, Mo. (our “Evangelical Epicenter”), there was a lot of enthusiasm. The Rev. Gary Swearengin of the Nixa Church of the Nazarene, who was not a strong McCain supporter, was extremely positive in an e-mail. “I haven’t had a chance to research and validate what I’ve heard about her,” Mr. Swearengin wrote. “[B]ut, what I’ve been told is very exciting and certainly might help with the conservative evangelicals if indeed it is true.”

John Schmalzbauer, a professor of religious studies at Missouri State University and a Patchwork Nation blogger in Nixa, wrote that “[E]vangelicals across the country” are excited about Palin. “She is one of their own. The fact that she is open to creationism in the public school might scare non-evangelicals in suburban counties up North, but around here that will play well. So will her strongly pro-gun stance. Folks in the Assemblies of God that I know are extremely proud of her. They are also worried that her religion might be used against her,” Professor Schmalzbauer wrote.

Palin grew up as a member of the Assemblies of God, one of the world’s largest Pentecostal denominations that is based just down the road from Nixa in Springfield, Mo. But she now reportedly attends several different churches.

People in other Patchwork communities are less sure what to make of Palin. In Sioux Center, Iowa (“Tractor Country”), John Hansen, the grain manager for the Farmers Cooperative Society, simply wrote, “Surprise, who is she, would like to read up on her. It will be interesting how things go with this pick.”

And down in Hopkinsville, Ky. (“Military Bastions”), where socially conservative values and issues of national defense are both key, we heard pluses and minuses.

Realtor Gay Nell Rittenberry, who plans to be in Minnesota this week for the GOP convention, hailed the pick. “I think she is a fabulous choice,” Ms. Rittenberry said. “When I first heard months ago she was going to sue the government to force them to drill [for oil], I made the comment she would be an excellent choice. I am glad Senator McCain agrees.”

But Dan Kemp, the moderate Democratic mayor of the town, was less excited. “I am disappointed in McCain’s veep selection,” Kemp wrote. “I think it should have been a person who ran for President and whose mettle has therefore been tested. I am very concerned about the future of our country.”