Posted on 10/10/2008 4:19:04 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Waukesha, WI - If John McCain and Sarah Palin came to Waukesha on Thursday to fire up the Republican base, they could have left their matches at home.
Based on the raucous reception the GOP ticket received at a town-hall meeting, the party regulars are plenty fired up — as well as feisty, anxious and a bit frustrated.
Angry even.
“I’m mad,” one man declared, when handed the microphone. “I’m really mad, and what may surprise you is it’s not the economy.”
He paused, a hand on his hip, amid cheers.
“It’s the socialists taking over our country.”
Louder cheers.
Including Democratic nominee Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) among “the other hooligans,” he wondered why Americans would want to keep them in power.
“We’ve got to have our heads examined,” he said. “It’s time to have you two represent us. So go get ’em.”
The response: a chant of “USA! USA!”
So it went Thursday, with others in the audience pleading with McCain and running mate Palin to hit their Democratic foes harder.
To expose connections between Obama and “all these shady characters that have surrounded him.”
To call out the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ARCORN), the group that has faced fraud charges related to voter registration drives in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
To go around the media and tell the real story, directly to the American people.
McCain and Palin used the questions as so many softballs, with each taking a sharp swing at Obama.
For many in the audience, the result was a home run.
Teri Adlam, 50, of Waukesha said she had been on the fence about the election.
After the event, however, she said she was fairly committed to McCain.
Health care and the mortgage industry are two of her biggest concerns, said Adlam, who was among the 5,000 the GOP calculated attended, based on the tickets required for entry.
“I was impressed,” Adlam said. “I think he answered some questions that I have.”
With every question Thursday, the answers grew more pointed. And more and more hands rose, others wanting to prod McCain and Palin further.
Many responses drew shouts from the crowd in the Center Court Sports Complex.
“Get ’em, John.”
“Go, Sarah.”
Tara Felten, 41, of Waukesha was undecided about the election when she arrived. She came, she said, to help see through “the slams and slander.”
“If it were my way, you wouldn’t know who they were, what they were, it would be the issues,” she said.
She said she was won over by experience, that of McCain in office and that of Palin as the mother of a child with special needs.
Many in the crowd talked about their support for McCain but acknowledged Palin was a draw as well. Women in pink McCain-Palin shirts peppered the crowd. Some also wore pink buttons reading “Read My Lipstick.”
Palin was a big draw for University Lake School students Braiden Sorgenfrei and Mike Gloyeck, who had gotten a McCain signature at a previous rally and added one from Palin on Thursday.
“I love Sarah Palin,” said Sorgenfrei, 17, of Wales, who won’t be able to vote Nov. 4.
“John McCain has the facts,” said Gloyeck, of Delafield, who turns 18 five days before election day.
The predominantly pro-McCain crowd showed its support with "Country First" signs.
bttt
A large crowd gathered in the parking lot at the Center Court Sports Complex before the rally.
That first guy sounded like a Freeper!
That's the only way most of it will get any visibility before the election.
He needs to bring up all the negatives about Obama, that he is not 100 percent American, potentially disloyal, pro-Arab, pro-Muslim, and pro-terrorist. Also, he needs to bring up the questions about Obama’s birth and eligibility to serve as POTUS. If Obama wins and is disqualified, Biden becomes president, and that’s not what the people are voting for.
And McCain can’t be afraid to bring up all the dirt to Obama’s face. Throw it in his face in front of the nation and watch him sputter.
I saw the video, but McCain still leaves me with the feeling that he has not changed but is still a RINO at heart. Sarah however, shows to be the real conservative among the two.
I wish the guy would wake up and understand that being a RINO is the wrong approach or is he perhaps hoping that, should he lose, he will still have “friends” on the other side of the political aisle?
He should at least have the courtesy to put up a real fight for Sarah’s sake — he asked her to get into this fight and, up to now, she has shown to be the one with political backbone.
Hey McCane, don’t you throw this woman to the dogs!
Somehow, I don't hear "Vice President Darrell Castle" or "Vice President Wayne Allen Root".
Oh, you betcha.
We moved out of Milwaukee in 1970. I thank my Dad on a regular basis for getting us out of there. Our old German neighborhood is now 100% Hispanic. Legal or not, I do not know...but I have my suspicions.
“We moved out of Milwaukee in 1970. I thank my Dad on a regular basis for getting us out of there. Our old German neighborhood is now 100% Hispanic. Legal or not, I do not know...but I have my suspicions.”
Where in Milwaukee did you live? I lived on 54th street, 2 blocks south of Oklahoma Ave until I enlisted in the USAF in ‘81.
Ping!
99th & Lincoln. West Allis.
99th & Lincoln. West Allis.
Cool. I had an uncle who lived a few blocks from State Fair Park. Small world.
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