McCain Speech Watch - Seattle

I went to J&M Café and Cardroom on First Ave. to watch the speech, where Peter Cowman of MoveRed.org (a G.O.P. youth organization based in King County hosted a watch party. There were about 32 people there, generally very focused on the speech and enthusiastic about it. 


There were roughly 20 men and 12 women, ranging in age from 20s to 50s, all white, mostly conservative Republicans and an independent. Steve Beren was there, candidate for Congress, 7th District.

The crowd reacted most strongly to references to Sarah Palin's nomination, to change, to veto threats, to the Iraq surge, to property rights, to jobs, to oil drilling -- all these topics spurred loud applause and cheers.

Before the speech I asked and found out that the people there admire McCain for his patriotism, his wartime sacrifice and personal qualities, although he was not the first choice of many in the G.O.P. primaries. Many reported feeling better about McCain and the campaign after the speech. Mostly his supporters seem to like McCain's biography and personal qualities. Some wish he was more conservative.




After the speech, those present were impressed by McCain's "genuineness," "sincerity," "patriotism." Several said that they like the fact that his speech struck a "unifying" tone. And everyone agreed that Palin "energized" the G.O.P. and made the race more competitive. But Palin is a polarizing figure in this group: some conservatives felt better about the ticket knowing that Palin was on it; others felt that they didn't know enough about her, that she was too divisive.



Comments

[lonnywinn]

I just drove from Seattle, down the coast to San Francisco and back up to Seattle via I-5 last week.

Know how many McCain signs I saw??

1

Yes...ONE.

It was on the Vancouver side of Washington state just after you cross the bridge into the state.

Didn't even see one bumper sticker.

We made it a point to look for them as I've never seen a single one in the Seattle area.

Doesn't sound very fired up to me.

Several hundred Obama signs were seen though.

[JavaCityGal]

Totally disagree with mitchell6877, eastside is not notoriously Republican, at least not now if perhaps it was once. I live in Redmond, but travel throughout the eastside frequently for work, visiting friends etc, and although I see Obama signs/bumper sticks everywhere, I've only seen one McCain bumpersticker. Thankfully, I would consider all of King County Obama country.

[mitchell6877]

Rose you are absolutely right. 3o people in a bar downtown do not reflect the views of the majority in this city. Although I'm sure McCain will get some votes from the notoriously Republican eastern side of the state.

[JustSo]

32 people in a pub is Fired Up? You're full of exaggeration!

I live in Seattle where you see about 100 Obama signs to Zero McCain signs.

Seattle is a group of educated young and middleaged professionals mostly in the high tech field. We didn't all take 6 years and 5 colleges to get a BA degree. We understand and internalize that Sarah Palin wants to kill baby polar bears to create a gimmick that she's doing something about the oil disaster that george bush left us. We see through Sarah Palin's living hypocrisy of saying she stands for the advancement of women but got to where she is by giving birth.

Fired Up for Republicans in Seattle? What a joke. We have a Democrat governor and 2 democrat us senators and democrat city official..­.please...­dream on!

[zedthewizard]

palin divisive, haven't these people read the reps press releases.

[530Rose]

Seattle is a reliably blue town in a reliably blue state. McCainiac's can make all the noise they want, Obama will win this state easily.