Posted on 01/30/2011 9:44:16 PM PST by SFmom
Gov. Palin rocked the place! Tickets were sold out months in advance. The ballroom seated 4,000. I decided to wait in line an hour and a half before the doors opened to get a good seat, and there were already 200 people in line when I got there. I felt I was there with "my peeps". I imagined that this felt what a Freeper convention would feel like! People were really happy, excited, thrilled to be going and I imagine if anyone had wanted to sell their tickets, they could have made a tidy sum. This audience, however, wasn't selling!
There were big screens set up around the room and good thing because the room was huge and they were needed. She looked smashing! She was on her game in every way. My husband, who had been somewhat lukewarm on Palin due to his perception that she wasn't a good speaker and that she wasn't intelligent enough completely evaporated after the speech. He told me that he now believes her to be a great speaker and to be intelligent. He conceded that the hatchet job the MSM does on her had had its effect on him until yesterday.
The first part of her speech seemed to be entirely extemporaneous with numerous personal annecdotes and observations. Her husband, parents and good friends who taught her to hunt were in the audience.
She began with a salute to the military. Then she spoke about her Alaska TV program in which it took numerous shots to bring down the caribou. She was kidded a lot about her poor marksmanship but kept telling her father at the time that she believed the scope was off. It turned out she was right. Her father had been hiking with the gun and had fallen on the tundra. The gun's scope DID get tweaked during that fall, which she discovered when she tested it later. This was the reason she didn't get the caribou on the first shot. She said that her father got a piece of hate mail from a woman who criticized him for killing caribou, saying that he should not kill caribou and just let the grocery stores make it! We all laughed, but I will say that it was a constant theme among the members of SCI that too many non-hunters really are clueless about where their food supply comes from!
She spoke about Bristol's decision to do DWTS: that Bristol thought that there was so much hatred toward the family that they might as well dance!
She never backed down from the "don't retreat, reload" statement. She made some comment about how her opposition wanted her to do that, but gave no indication that she intended to accede to their desires. She got lots of applause throughout the speech from the crowd.
It's too bad the coverage of the content of her speech is so poor. She devoted a lot of time to an overall theme she wanted to emphasize, which is that local control is far better, more efficient and more sensitive to issues than an overbearing federal mandate. One of the cases in point was the ESA's (Environmental Species Act's) unintended consequences in the case of wolves. Now that wolves are protected, caribou, elk and moose are being decimated, as the wolf packs target the young and take them out. She made us all laugh when she talked about the various photoshopped images and videos showing her dangling from a helicopter skid "smoking a pack". She said that aerial hunting is illegal and that she has never done it.
Her delivery was upbeat, optimistic and put a smile on everyone's face. The talk was clearly specific to SCI, as opposed to a rehearsed stump speech. She rarely referenced notes and was almost always smiling during her delivery. Her face darkened only when talking....briefly ...about Tuscon shooting.
I am fairly convinced that the fact that she agreed to speak at the SCI Saturday night dinner was the reason SCI was breaking records for its convention fund raising efforts in the midst of this dismal economy. My impression is that SCI members from east of California attended in record numbers, which made up for the severe drop-off in California attendees. The change was very stark. It was very clear how bad the California economy is for even the more comfortable members of the SCI! Vendors were really feeling it.
If you have never been to an SCI show, it's an amazing experience. Next year it will be in Las Vegas. Y'all come!
Good for her!
Thank you for this thread.
Great report! Glad to hear hubby came around. It’s a good lesson for him (and all of us) to realize how easy it is to be brainwashed. It’s a daily bombardment.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what’s “SCI”?
Oh, one other thing, what was the average age of the audience?
Thanks!
Thanx for the report. Some folks I know from here in TX went, but weren’t getting home until tonight, so I was especially glad to read your post.
A excellent report on the SCI event. Thank you.
Thanks for that wonderful report!!! Thanks sooo much for sharing! Excellent.
Safari Club International
Safari Club International
thanks for posting and giving us the real story... Sounds like a great event...
Thanks for the after-action report, SFmom! Wish we could have been there! Sounds like Governor Palin is NOT backing down from the concerted MSM and current regime’s attacks against her! WooohoooO! :-)
Ping!
I’m putting a link to this thread on my blog.
Thanks for the ping!
- JP
Great report! Reading it brought a smile to my face! see :-)
She’s taking it all the way.
God is giving her the strength.
Also, debunking the bogus claim by the LSM.
I was there!!! She did NOT say she was ditching the phrase and even repeated it!!!
33 posted on Sunday, January 30, 2011 12:13:34 PM by SFmom
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2665734/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.