New York Republicans Admittedly Ambivalent On McCain-Palin
The Metropolitan Republican Club, counting Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani among its members, hosted a fundraiser debate-watch party October 7 for Saul Farber, a candidate for the New York State Assembly. Despite Farber's young age (at twenty-two, he is only a few months younger than his opponent Richard Gottfried was when he was elected to the Assembly in 1970), it was a mature crowd of about sixty people. About half were in their fifties or older; half in their thirties.
When I arrived, Farber was finishing up his campaigning, so the watch party could begin. He was telling his audience about an article that ran recently in The New York Sun. "I was called New York's Sarah Palin," he said. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing." Laughter ensued, and immediately I saw that these Republicans were ambivalent about their candidate for Vice President.
When I asked Farber later what he thought of Palin, his response was, "We don't share a lot of the same views." I asked whether he viewed her as a liability and for a few seconds he was quiet. "I think she has energized the base," he answered. "I think those who support her love her. Her liability is the original complaint we had about Obama--years served in office. But I don't believe she's inexperienced."
Patrick Condren served on McCain's New York Area Finance Committee. What does he think of Palin? He too paused. "She's the result of a maverick," he said, referring to McCain. But Condren feels that Palin provides something both candidates are missing. "It's the first time since 1960 that we're going to have a senator as president," he pointed out. "I think Palin brings some executive experience to the table."
It's not just her executive experience that's appealing; Palin does have her fans. "I think she's a role model for women," said Tracey Sheelen, a young blonde in pharmaceutical sales who is pro-life. "She started with the PTA, she's a governor, and she fought the old boys' network." Sheelen may not be a typical New York Republican, but she's not alone in her views.
Gail Allen, Secretary of the New York Young Republican Club, told me, "Palin has an amazing career as executive of the largest state of the union, and she has five kids. As women, we've been fighting for all of that: to play the mom role and have a full-time career."
Another woman, an attorney who preferred to remain anonymous, was much less enthusiastic. "I like her," she shrugged, "but she's not at the top of the ticket." Palin's position as number two is reassuring, I think, to those less comfortable with her. In the windows of the Metropolitan Republican Club are posters that say only "McCain"; Palin's name has conveniently been left off, and it provokes the sneaking suspicion that Republicans see her as a handicap. Another V.P. candidate may have been more palatable. Supermarket mogul John Catsmitaditis, who is newly Republican after supporting Hillary Clinton and who's currently exploring a bid for New York City mayor, told me, "I probably would have picked Romney."
However muted, I thought the criticism of Palin rather remarkable, coming from fellow Republicans so close to the election. The reluctance to criticize Obama--both during the debate and afterward--seemed equally remarkable, especially in light of how impassioned people can be when watching a presidential debate.
Some people rolled their eyes when Obama said he wanted to expand the Peace Corps; "you poor misguided little peacenik," I imagined them thinking. Most everyone laughed when McCain quipped that "nailing down Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing jello to the wall." But I counted on one hand the times people cheered and applauded. First was when McCain called Obama "the second highest recipient of Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac money in history." The other times, more benign, were when Tom Brokaw stopped Obama from responding to McCain.
After the debate, I sought out reaction from the crowd, and even here, at the Metropolitan Republican Club, I heard some pro-Obama commentary. "He's inspiring," acknowledged Farber. "Obama's a wonderful orator. McCain is not matched in eloquence."
Condren, who had been on McCain's Finance Committee, also complimented Obama: "He is very articulate." He added, "Community organizing is real stuff. I respect that." Admittedly, New York Republicans aren't necessarily typical. As Condren said, "I am a New York City Republican which means I'm like a left-wing Democrat in Wyoming."
When I asked Allen, of the Young Republican Club, to comment on Obama's debate performance, she seemed hard pressed to find fault. "He was a politician being a politician," she said. But she offered no praise. "You have this guy who basically has spent his two years in government writing two books and running for president."
The most damning critique came from a young woman who withheld her name because, she said, her employer supports Obama. She took issue with Obama's foreign policy. "Why is it OK to go to Somalia and not Iraq?" she wanted to know. "What does that country need to do in order to warrant humanitarian support? Mass graves don't mean anything? A dictator didn't mean anything?" She went further: "Is it that it's not an African country? Obama will mention Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo. He thinks it's politically correct. It's not Iraq's fault that they have oil."
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Oh, yes, Ms.-withheld-her-name, we went into Iraq for HUMANITARIAN reasons. That's why we're bombing civilian structures and creating more unrest by our mere presence.
Didn't somebody tell her that giving humanitarian aid doesn't require a military presence and has nothing to do with where the receiving nation is located? The military itself (and every other Intelligence community we have) said that we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq but could have made headway through other means, particularly in capturing the terrorists who had nothing to do with Iraq whatsoever. Not to mention the legal ambiguities with interfering in a sovereign nation when the crimes against humanity are no longer occuring.
But it's easier to just assume a black politician is innately inferior enough to make policy decisions based on kinship with the continent, and accuse him of not wanting to help Iraq just because he didn't want to enmire our nation in an illegal and counterproductive war.
t's no wonder most soldiers side with the Democrats right now--at least they pay attention to the actual issues instead of assuming they know what to do without doing the basic research, and don't go around assuming other politicians are biased without bothering to learn the facts about the issues based on which they're attackng those politicians.
One has to drain out a great deal of intelligence to find John McCain and Sarah Palin at all acceptable as President & Vice President. Those who refuse to dumb down any further choose to support the better candidates, Barack Obama & Joe Biden. Those Republicans who go ahead and support their inferior candidates may never again have access to the amount of reasoning that they crushed in order to give that support.
I stand her in shock, that anyone can say Palin is even acceptable. My 12th grade nephew is more informed than she is. It is incredible . Please wake me up ! Say it is a bad dream.
to the author: i'm wondering why you chose to divulge to us that the young pharm rep was blonde. it was just interesting, as no one else in your article had their physical attributes described. don't get me wrong, i am not trying to criticize and i loved your post, but still... just curious.
See Odile Weissenborn's Profile
Hmmm. Thank you for calling me on this!
The Repugnants had eight years to come up with a viable candidate and the best they could do is the rag-tag group that we saw going for nomination!?
America deserves better!
McCain is too old, his mind is not able to cope with today's issues.
McCain is locked into the cold war mindset.
IT is always the women in a country who perpetrate the old hatreds and bigotries, no matter what they say. Women are less inclined to help other women succeed, less inclined to train their boy children to be respectful and understand women's rights.
Then they keep bawling about how women in Egypt, Iran, Iraq Afghanistan, Africa and yes America are treated badly.
But a woman has 7 years in which to sow the seeds of respect for human rights in her sons and she repeatedly refuses to do so - in every country of the world, when women are oppressed, the oppression comes from the women of the previous generation who did not teach their sons to love women.
s
I know they are young and Republican, but can't we find
just one in my hometown with a little teeny weeny bit of sense.
John McCain has been out matched since the beginning of this
presidential race, so what is there to be ambivalent about???
The poor idi_ot at the end doesn't realize the difference of a peacekeeping mission versus a full-blown invasion and subsequent war. Iraq was not invaded for Sadaam's atrocities against his own people, it was allegedly invaded because it posed a threat to U.S. national security, which ended up being a complete farce! If we weren't so busy giving Sadaam those weapons in the 80s (Rumsfeld) to fight the Iranians, he would have never been able to use them on his people. Repubs are SOoooo st2pid.
yeah, as a new yorker, i have no idea why mccain and co. would come to the empire state...its OBAMA town...so GET OUT!
Who cares, NY is in the bag for Obama, this is not a story
See Odile Weissenborn's Profile
Fair point! But what prompted the story was my growing skepticism about the media's hyper-criticism of Palin & all the pro-Obama coverage. I thought no one was bothering to ask Republicans what they thought. So I sought them out, but --interestingly-- got more of the same: criticism of Palin & positive comments about Obama! (More on "politikitkat.")
Pro OBAMA coverage????? Have you been hiding under a rock?? Every time there is a legitimate criticism about McCain they always seem to want to "balance" it by putting out a criticism of Obama as well (Anderson Cooper saying that both campaigns have been equally angry. It's a good thing Paul Begala corrected him.)
Hyper-criticism??? For crying out loud, the woman couldn't even name one newspaper or magazine -- she could just have said Vogue or Time or even the local paper.
Sure she is "one of us" -- a mom, a wife but that doesn't qualify her to be the veep of this country. You wouldn't want a hack for a doctor.
Sarah Palin has become a mascot, like the students in costumes that stroll the sidelines and fire-up the crowd at ball games. Give me an M...M...Give me a C...C...give me a break!
Maybe she should just invest in an elephant suit, since her strong energy suit fell off yesterday!
A mascot! That's the perfect description of Palin's role in this campaign!
CantUnderstandNormalTalk==Failin'Palin!
Being ambivalent about one's candidate is expected. We Dems rather like our candidate, too. But for far more and better reasons. McSame wants America to question the personal character of his opponent, a person who is now well known by America to be far more presidential. While McSame is desparately trying to distract America and "turn the page" on a national financial crisis, Obama gives America answers to the past 8 years of failed McBush policies. Obama/Biden '08!
"It's not Iraq's fault that they have oil." - And it's not the brutally oppressive regime of Saudi Arabia's fault they have oil either, but BushCo only want to play grab-ass with one of them.
I'm beginning to think that a lot of supposedly intelligent, high-career women are not that bright. They consider Palin a role model? I don't get this disconnect. Have they not heard about the rallies? Have they seen her wink and preen in front of the camera? Have they not heard what has come out of her mouth since the Convention?
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