To the Uninspired GOP, She Inspired Us Again

I am going to write my story on Governor Palin’s one year anniversary to stardom from a slightly different angle than the others. I am going to write about the effect that Governor Palin’s nomination meant to a struggling and uninspired GOP.

As a lowly county party GOP chairwoman located in southeast Wisconsin, the struggles almost seemed insurmountable. In July and August of 2008, our county party was just trying to stay above water. We were being pushed by our state GOP to find hundreds of volunteers, open a local office, get people enthused about a candidate they did not particularly care for and find a way of getting through an elections cycle that would not favor Republicans.

Just to make matters worse, as a county party, we could not afford to do any of these things. I know the thinking, we were Republicans, and we must be rich. Well, not here in Kenosha County; we were broke. Many of the county party board members were using their own money to finance the opening of the offices. County board members, including myself, bought our own paint for the walls, t-shirts, office supplies and anything else an office would need. Over the years, many of us have purchased chairs, tables, and desks that we could re-use.

I also counted on the kindness of many of our board members for simple things like a refrigerator, microwave, phones and computers that we could borrow until the elections was over.

Somehow we managed to find enough money and supplies to have our offices open by August 1st. Now we proceeded to start looking for volunteers to help us keep the offices open and functioning until early September when we knew the state GOP would at least help us with finances, full time employees and interns that they would hire to man the offices. After all, the county GOP board members were only volunteers, and we have never been paid a dime to do what we do.

We also managed to get a handful of volunteers to make some phone calls that the state GOP was demanding we get done. We met the goals, but many of us board members were making the calls ourselves in every spare minute outside of our full time jobs.

In early August, the worst part of it all was that there was no enthusiasm for Senator John McCain. A couple of weeks before we opened our offices there was a townhall meeting with Senator McCain a few miles from our location. The location could seat about 1000 people, and yet the venue was not full the day he arrived. I offered free tickets to anyone that thought they might want to go and listen.

As Barack Obama’s star continued to rise, the GOP grassroots lost more and more faith in Senator McCain. Yes, we all admired his service to his country, but little else ginned any kind of enthusiasm to volunteer or donate money.

On August 28, 2008, we held our normal county board meeting. None of us wanted to stay home that night and watch Barack Obama’s coronation. We had a huge mountain to climb, and it was getting worse by the day. During that board meeting we discussed who John McCain should nominate as his VP running mate. There was some panic in the Senator’s continued insistence that a Democrat would be the perfect pick. We knew that if Senator Joe Lieberman was picked that we would lose the very little support and enthusiasm we currently had. At that time, the state GOP had gone out and spent several hundred thousand dollars to get yard signs for Senator McCain. We had those yard signs in our offices and struggled to get them out the door and into people’s yard. We had received hundreds of them and I thought there was no way we would be able to get rid of them all. Very few people wanted one, and I had 800 of them.

As Obama was giving his coronation speech in front of the majestic theater that he created for himself, several of us did talk about this woman we had heard about. I had heard of Governor Palin over a year in advance of this night and had heard that she might be on the short list of possible nominees. A couple of years earlier, I remember hearing rumblings about Alaska’s very liberal politicians. Yes, they ran as conservatives but then, when elected, they turned liberal. I was frustrated by the massive amounts of money that these so called Republicans were demanding from my tax dollars and the corruption that seemed to follow them around.

In 2006, I saw that a real conservative woman was running to finally clean up that state. I thought cool, maybe they will stop taking my money for bridges to nowhere and finally clean up the GOP. These people were killing the Republican brand even as so many grassroots volunteers were struggling to try and take the GOP back. I had heard that she won and was happy that they finally had a real conservative in Alaska running the place. I really never gave it a second thought until her name began popping up all over the internet as a possible running mate for Senator McCain. On August 28th, my fellow board members and I quietly hoped that she would be the nominee. Finally, there would be a real conservative for all of America, not just Alaska.

I was up at my usual time of about 4:30 a.m. and scouring the internet for any news on the GOP VP pick. Very little information was out because everything in the MSM was about "The One" they believed was god almighty, Barack Obama.

I had seen some information on this tiny little website that a plane had left Alaska and was headed to Dayton, Ohio. I thought, no way, John McCain may just surprise us after all.

Excited, I emailed a couple of my friends who I had been discussing this with me on the night before. We emailed back and forth as I headed off to my day job. The emails continued until Senator McCain made his announcement. I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. I did manage to contain myself and headed back to my daily grind at work, but the emails continued. I was beginning to receive dozens and dozens of emails from conservatives I had not heard from in years. They were excited too.

Then the phone calls started on my cell phone. I could not answer my cell phone because I was at work. I just let them leave a voice mail knowing I would have to get back to them later. I was a little curious why our campaign offices had called me on several occasions. We had volunteers manning the place that day, what could the problem be? I called them back on my lunch hour to find out if there was a problem. Yes, there was a problem. They were overwhelmed with people piling in the door. Do we have t-shirts? Do we have sign up sheets? Do we have yard signs with Palin’s name yet?!

Holy cow, the volunteers were in a panic! I told to just make sure that every single person that came in the door needed to leave their name, address, phone number and email…we would sort it out later and get back to them.

The volunteers did pretty well. I rushed straight to the offices right after work. I walked into a chaos I have never seen before at any GOP office I was a part of in the past. The place was packed with dozens of very excited people. I thought I was going to have to crawl my way in the front door.

They wanted yard signs with Palin’s name, which we did not have and would not have for a few more weeks. For heaven’s sake, we had hundreds with just the Senator's name, but the woman had only been announced that morning!

The masses finally began to settle down a bit when I began promising them that all they had to do was sign our volunteers sheets, take a sign with McCain’s name only and we would let them trade it in at a later day. That seemed to satisfy the masses.

That day, a couple of hundred of people had come to our offices. Finally there was some excitement.

That excitement did not stop. The donations began pouring into our offices. Thousands of dollars were pouring in faster than I could spend it. You see, I am the kind of county GOP chairwoman that believes that if you have people willing to sacrifice their time, money and are willing to invest their heart and souls, then I am willing to do everything in my power to make them comfortable. Thank goodness that our county treasurer is a patient woman and my friend. I was spending money faster than she could write the checks. We are still friends today. Thank goodness.

For the next few weeks, hundreds and hundreds of people poured into our campaign office. The buzz was all about VP candidate Sarah Palin. Did we have t-shirts with her name? Did we have campaign buttons? Did we have bumper stickers? (The most popular bumper sticker were the typical McCain/Palin bumper stickers and second was “I am voting for VP Sarah Palin”.)

Our county party bought thousands of dollars in campaign buttons, t-shirts, bumper stickers. In a seven week period, we sent out for reprints of our own designed t-shirts three different times. We could not keep up with demand. If the item did not have Palin’s name on it, we had difficulty giving it away.

One of the benefits of living in a battleground state was that Senator McCain and Governor Palin actually visited our state on several occasions. Our volunteers were driving all across the state chasing these two around.

Another one of the benefits of being a county party chairwoman was the fact that I got VIP tickets. Down in front, up close and personally. I really had to choose carefully the people I took with me. I picked volunteers that were basically living their lives at our offices. They were making thousands of phone calls and I felt they deserved something special. The first time I went, I got 5 VIP tickets on Sept 5th. We were the very first stop on the campaign trail directly after the convention. I got to shake her hand as she ran to the stage. They whipped by so fast coming in, that I could not even get my camera ready, but I had my camera ready when they exited.

Of course there were 5 of us there, plus one of our state legislators was also there with her family. She had her one year old and a three year old with her. We had those kids right up front knowing that the Governor would stop and spend a few extra seconds, if she saw the kids. The governor did see the kids and stopped and fussed for a bit. That is where I took this photo. In the second photo you can see her fussing over the baby in our state representative’s arms.

I was too flustered to ask any questions, but I did thank her for being willing to run.

The second opportunity I had was a townhall in Waukesha, WI on October 9th. I was determined to get up front again, but I only got 4 tickets this time. I took the head of our college Republicans who was so inspired by Governor Palin that she was coming and volunteering several times a week and bringing dozens of college kids with her. I also brought a husband and wife couple who had already made thousands of calls for us. There we were, third row, directly behind Senator McCain and Governor Palin for all of the TV cameras to pick up. I did everything in my power to ask a question, but the Senator never called on me.

Afterward, Senator McCain made one quick trip around the circle the stage was set up on. No autographs, but we tried. As usual at these events, Governor Palin hung around for at least 45 minutes signing autographs and talking to people. I did get my book autographed plus a couple of "Country First" signs autographed. I even said to the Governor…”We know Senator McCain does not really want to fight, so you have to do it for him, Sarah.” She looked up, smiled and put up her fists like a fighter. All of us walked out of there with our books and “Country First” placards signed. I even got a couple of extras signed and gave them to special friends.

She had this fancy camera that would make these fancy pictures and she shared them with all of us.

Needless to say, the volunteers continued to pour in. Many drove a couple of hundred miles from Illinois to get there. They came every weekend for the entire 7 weeks to volunteer. We had a large group of volunteers from the Dane County (Chicago) Republicans and the Chicago Young Professional Republicans.

The benefit of living in Kenosha County is that it's right on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. Those conservatives living in Obamaland could not take the drama any more and set about volunteering in a state where they could make a difference. So they headed to Wisconsin and Ohio, and we loved it.

Probably over 100 of them were coming on a weekly basis. They came during the week in the evenings to make calls, and every weekend they would send a large group. They were in desperate need of yard signs and were on the bottom of the priority list and had difficulty getting some shipped. I think all total we gave them over 1000 yard signs.

Since we had such difficulty keeping the McCain/Palin yard signs in stock, I think our district GOP went out and purchased over 6500 just to make sure we had no gaps in delivery.

This was the most inspired group of volunteers I have ever seen in the many years I have been doing this.

My primary job was to just step back and let these people do their thing. That and of course, I had to keep feeding them. We had our refrigerator packed with food, drinks and beer. Yes, I said beer. We live in Wisconsin where we are not only the cheese state but the beer state too. We only allowed the adults to have a beer at the end of the night after the phone calls were done. I did have to run off more than one or two college kids. I was not about to take responsibility for that.

In the end, the two months that Governor Palin was on the ticket inspired the dejected conservatives in Kenosha and all across the country. I know that all across the country the same thing was happening. In our county, at least, we were never short of volunteers. We not only met our goals set by the state, but we blew them away. All told, in the last 6 weeks of the campaign, our county party alone made over 144,000 phone calls.

For years, the real conservatives, the ones that embraced Reaganism, had been told to sit down and shut up. The moderates had it under control. You see, they insisted that we need to sacrifice our principles to reach across the aisle. They were wrong, and we have had two blistering election cycles that have proven this to be true.

I know that type of thinking is wrong and Governor Palin is perfect proof of that. As long as you put the people first and are standing on principle, you can reach out to the other side but they need to come to your side of the aisle. You do not go to their side of the aisle. If you do, you have then betrayed the people.

I believe that the tea parties and townhall meetings are perfect proof of what Governor Palin started -- a new revolution. It is okay to be conservative and to stand on your principles. Even some of our elected officials are finally standing their ground. Look at what happened with the stimulus boondoggle. Every one of them, with the exception of three moderates, stood their ground. The conservatives are showing up again. It sure took long enough. We are inspired to fight again.

Quite frankly, I believe Governor Palin showed the way. You fight the GOP every single time they screw up and when they are doing well, you surround them and work together as a team. We saw that in the Governor’s pipeline deal.

Conservatism is back. We still have some work to do with some GOP members, but you cannot fix a problem in the GOP if you run away. We need to keep running off the squishy Republicans. We need Governor Palin’s help to do that. Nothing sends their heads spinning like a Facebook statement from the Governor.

We are still in contact with many of those that volunteered. Support is growing stronger and stronger each day. This year, our events are drawing more than they ever have in years past.

Just last week, our county GOP ran a straw poll and we took this vote very seriously. Governor Palin beat every single candidate she was up against 2 to 1 easily. She got more votes than each of the other candidates combined.

There are still many in the GOP that oppose her, just like they did Reagan. At least now we know that they oppose her at their own peril.

What she represents is our unapologetic conservative principles, and like the Governor, we will not sit down and shut up any more.

“What she represents is our unapologetic conservative principles, and like the Governor, we will not sit down and shut up any more.”

Nice article/post for a Newbie. Thanks.

The Palin Bashers will be along in, 3...2...1...

The author couldnt bring herself to say that Mclaim was the hole in the GOP boat.. a BIG BIG hole.. and Palin was a coffee can scoop.. OR worse was oblivious of it..

She’s not reaaaaaaaaaady....

She quit her jooooooooooob...

She doesn’t know who is president of lower slovooooooooobia...

(Just trying to anticipate the Palin Bashers. Did I do it with enough of a whine to my voice?)

The truth is the truth. Sarah Palin is the FORCE in the GOP today and as the days pass, she will, and WE will, grow stronger until SHE wins.
Sarah. THE woman for all seasons.

You betcha! Pretty darn good impersonation!

I like her becuase she talks like I do in Real Life...among other reasons.

McCain was a hole in the boat, yes. But what was leaking out? We were. Supporters of America. Supporters of a free market. Supporters of the Constitution. Supporters of Individual Liberty.

McCain wasn’t good enough for us and so we bailed (or gave minimal support) and then came back somewhat (but not totally) when he brought Palin on board but we were so sure we didn’t want anything to do with the McCain Leaky Boat (and yes, it was that) that we acquiesced and now who is in the white house. A F*ing COMMUNIST, that’s who.

We really showed that jerk McCain, didn’t we?

I like her because she GETS IT.

That the other side is out to MURDER US.

I don’t care how she talks or winks or fumbles... none of that matters to me.

She GETS IT. That we are DOOMED unless we act to save our liberties.

“The Palin Bashers will be along in, 3...2...1...”

So true. However, this conservative judges Palin to be much more intellilgent and experienced than the Obamaloon.

My test? Palin vs the Loon in a debate where 1) real questions - not smuggled to the loon get asked, and 2) no teleprompters.

It would be a wipeout.

Wrong we tried but McLame was so bad and such a RINO he had no chance. Mr. Nice Guy? He finished last and with him our chance to stop the Commies advance quickly. A horrible candidate.

In early August, the worst part of it all was that there was no enthusiasm for Senator John McCain.

And yet, I've had a number of liberal DC area colleagues (and Obama supporters) insist to me that Sarah Palin actually cost McCain votes. Clueless as ever they are.

Who cares about the bashers, they will never be convinced. This article proves what we all know, she is a fresh Conservative force that America needs.

Pray for America and Lady Palin

Well, I’m not going to spend any time defending that worthless schmuck now. I do believe, though, that we all shoulda coulda worked harder and done more. I gave money and voted but I coulda done more. I coulda done so much more.

But you’re right. Scmuck One didn’t really even ask for our help and he criticized us when we criticized The Messiah, so I can certainly agree with your hatred of him. I hate him too. I’ve always hated him.

But we shoulda coulda done more to prevent the Communist Party from gaining the WH. And with The Messiah, that’s exactly what we have.

No bashing from this supporter. Sarah is the bright light on the horizon. She inspired me to contribute to the cause for the first time ever.

It's laughable to me to hear pundits, most of whom are rabid Obama supporters, blame Palin for McCains dismal performance.

Like many conservatives, I was prepared to stay at home or hold my nose and vote for him. We all recognized the dangerous socialist DemonRAT agenda, but felt hapless and betrayed by McCain and the Republican party. We still do, perhaps even more so.

Sarah Palin knows first hand of the treachery of Republicans that put their self interests above all else. We need to rid ourselves of those “good old boys and girls” and bring real change to America. I”ve had it with politicians. Give me a Statesman, or Woman.

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