Word: palin
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...Friday night, and there have got to be 500 people packed into the Sluice Box, a beer-soaked clapboard honky-tonk at the Alaska State Fair - the state's biggest event all year - just down the highway from Governor Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla. The legendary Hobo Jim, Alaska's official state balladeer, the guy who has opened sessions of the legislature with a song, is onstage, working blue...
...record, he's not singing about Palin, though the curvature and comeliness of McCain's surprise vice-presidential nominee pick are brought up by just about everyone here, man and woman, in a way that would make lower-48 liberals and feminists cringe. Palin-friendly talk show hosts gush how she'll wow 'em with her toughness - and her legs. State fair t-shirt vendor Kevin Beagley says he remembers one particular customer last year who bought a few t-shirts that said "Alaska: The Coldest State with the Hottest Governor". The buyer? Palin's own father, Chuck Heath...
...That's how it was throughout the State Fair on Friday. The news of Palin's selection is an intoxicating mix for the people here: pride in a hometown hero, good news (finally!) for a scandal-racked Alaska, and, for this deeply red part of the state, relief that the Republican Presidential ticket just got a lot more conservative than...
...wonder T-shirts saying Go Sarah! started sprouting up by mid-afternoon. Beagley's own homemade batch of 150 McCain/Palin t-shirts arrived at 2 p.m. and were sold out within the hour, leaving Palin fans sifting in vain through piles of shirts that say Grim Reefer and Chicks Dig Me. In town, businesses have been putting up exuberant messages of support, as if Sarah! was once again on the high school basketball team, headed off to state finals...
...Such sentiments, if they expand by word of mouth across a crucial swing state like Ohio, are music to the ears of McCain's advisers. By picking Palin, McCain took a chance with a politician who lacks much experience on a national or international stage. But it's a bet that could pay off big on November...