Palin has energized Republican base.

1 comment September 6th, 2008

All the talk about Sarah Palin being added to the Republican ticket in an effort to attract disaffected Hillary Clinton voters is mostly talk. She’s far too conservative to cause Hillary’s liberal base to consider voting for the anti-Hillary.

Rather, what Palin has done is to electrify the Republican base. Those are the people who were not enthused about this election at all. They are the social conservatives, usually evangelical Christians, who make the phone calls, stuff the envelopes, go door to door, contribute money and host coffees in their precincts. Without them, the modern Republican Party can’twin a national election.

And they were just not motivated by McCain.

But within hours of McCain’s selection of evangelical conservative Palin, the governor of Alaska, phones were ringing off the hooks at Republican headquarters all over America. Here in Winnebago County, GOP chairwoman Jan Klaas told me that she had 30 requests for yard signs in 2 days.

Now, the base is energized, and McCain has a real chance of winning this election. It’s too soon to know how Palin will play with a larger audience; obviously she’ll energize some people, and turn off others. What we don’t know is the ratio.