Deep in the cheese

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Sep 15th 2008
From Economist.com

John McCain and Sarah Palin take their show on the road


WASHINGTON STREET in downtown Cedarburg, Wisconsin, is a tidy row of nineteenth-century brick and stone buildings, replete with bakery, butcher shop and a mid-century movie palace, called the Rivoli. But today this small-town idyll just outside of Milwaukee is packed with a dense crowd, queued for blocks to get through metal detectors guarded by stern Secret Service agents. Sarah Palin is in town. Oh, and John McCain, too.

This is the first campaign stop for the pair following the Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota. And, though Mr McCain accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency the night before, Mrs Palin is the star. The words “hockey moms” float through the crowd, who are also used to long and cold winters.

Palinmania and its associated kitsch have bloomed quickly, as a sampling of home-made signs in the crowd shows. “Palin Pawa”, one reads. “Hurricane Sarah” declares another (presumably, the McCain campaign hadn’t approved that one: the GOP was so worried about the hurricanes ravaging America’s Gulf Coast that it all but cancelled the first day of its convention). A third uses acrostics:

Powerfully

Antagonising

Left

wIng

Nuts

Not bad for a governor of a state with a tiny population whom most Americans hadn’t heard of a few weeks ago. Of course, the McCain campaign also chose their venue well. Cedarburg is friendly territory.

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Before making my way through the crowds and onto the press riser, I turn into a diner just outside of the security zone. It’s packed. A 60-ish couple approaches me and says that they didn’t want to wait in the lines. “After this week”, Robert Heiden, a retired dentist, says, “everyone’s pro-McCain”. Mr Heiden and his wife, Carla, explain that the area is filled with social conservatives, folks opposed to abortion and tied to their faith and German heritage. Indeed, the décor in the diner resembles a Munich souvenir shop, with large, painted beer steins and a bar where locals sip on pints before noon. People here believe in gemütlichkeit, Mrs Heiden says, describing it as a sort of happy, friendly feeling one extends to guests.

Represented in Congress by Jim Sensenbrenner, one of the managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, this is probably the most conservative part of Wisconsin. There’s even some residual fondness for George Bush here—it’s just the sort of place where Mrs Palin, a committed pro-lifer who favours teaching creationism in state schools, is supposed to rouse the base for Mr McCain.

Just before she begins speaking, the crowd starts chanting her name. And when she delivers her lines, she gets at least as much applause as Mr McCain does—even though her speech is little more than a cut-down version of the one she delivered at the Republican convention, and everyone in the crowd seems to know all of her zingers by heart already.

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Some of her most effective barbs, unfortunately, happen to be false. She claims that she turned down money from Congress to build a “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, an enduring symbol of government waste—in fact, she campaigned for that very project when she ran for governor.

Not everyone in Cedarburg is fully committed to the Republican ticket, of course. Laura Hewitt, a nurse who regrets voting for George Bush, is just the sort of voter Mr Obama is desperate to pick up this year. But in Wisconsin’s primary election, she voted for Hillary Clinton. “You know why?” she asks. “Because she’s a woman. I’ll be honest.” Now she says Mrs Palin’s presence on the GOP ticket is pushing her towards Mr McCain. Mary Alice Gustafson, another spectator who overheard the chatter, nods encouragingly. After we finish talking, Ms Gustafson and Ms Hewitt exchange e-mail addresses.

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Others in the crowd say Mrs Palin is committed to her family but also “strong” and “sure of herself”, a “role model”, a “good representation of women”. Indeed, a big part of Mrs Palin’s appeal seems to be that she strays enough from traditional gender roles to be exciting, but she also readily indulges in them, valorising the life of the hockey mom as she runs for vice president.

Still, there is much Americans do not yet know about Alaska’s governor, particularly when it comes to policy. For now, many seem to have filled in the gaps by giving her the benefit of the doubt. That will not last forever.