McCain's VP pick stirs excitement, bafflement among women

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate, campaigned outside Tom's Diner in Pittsburgh yesterday with running mate John McCain. (John Gress/ Reuters)

ST. PAUL - A day after John McCain stunned the nation by announcing that he had selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, women across the nation were taking in the news, trying to absorb the idea that this little-known governor with a fascinating story and an almost impossibly short record could become the first female vice president.

At the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul, which will host the Republican National Convention this week, women in this critical swing state expressed a range of first impressions. There was genuine excitement that a woman could become vice president. There was bafflement that McCain picked someone with so little experience to join his ticket, even anger from those who viewed the choice as clumsy tokenism.

But two things were clear: The 44-year-old Palin intrigued them as much as any vice presidential pick could have, and few know enough about Palin to have a real opinion.

"I listened to the news all day yesterday," said Kathy Grey, a 49-year-old homemaker from Maple Grove who is leaning toward McCain, as her young son ate a pretzel near the midway yesterday.

"I'm at a loss for words," said Maryann Grogan, 54, a mortgage banker and Republican from Marine on St. Croix, as she strolled around the Dairy Building, where inside a rotating glass cylinder a woman carved a bust of a young woman in a block of butter.

Grogan said she loved that Palin seemed as if she was "willing to stand up to the good old boys and big business" and that Palin, like Grogan, is a self-described "hockey mom." But she worried about McCain's motivations. "I hope they didn't do it because they think women are stupid enough to vote for her just because she's a woman," she said.

McCain's strategists do hope that Palin will help McCain attract disaffected Democratic and independent women who supported Hillary Clinton in this year's long and bitter Democratic primary contest. But a number of Clinton supporters said yesterday that they wouldn't consider doing so, including Pamela Ehrlich, a 58-year-old part-time food taster for General Mills. Ehrlich, a Democrat, was thrilled at the idea of seeing a woman president in her lifetime and was very disappointed when Clinton lost.

As she paused outside the booth for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Ehrlich said McCain's strategists must be "insane" to think she would pick a woman for the sake of her gender when the differences between McCain and Obama on healthcare, taxes, abortion rights, and the Iraq war are so vast.

"I personally think her choice is demeaning to any woman," she said. "I don't dislike the woman. But can you imagine John McCain dying and her taking over the country? You've got to be kidding. It insults me that he did that."

Others, though, loved the idea - even one supporter of Barack Obama visiting from the Chicago area. Melissa Huck, a 47-year-old Democrat, said Palin seemed "young and passionate and she didn't seem afraid."

"I think a lot of people are ready to see a woman in office," said Huck. She said the addition of Palin made her see both Obama and McCain as independent-minded. "Both of them are offering change."

Palin's personal story, as a former beauty queen and mother of five who became a wildly popular governor, intrigued women on both sides of the aisle. Many said that in her debut speech she looked and sounded pleasingly different from the presidential candidates they have listened to over the last year and a half.

"If she is what she says she is, it'd be wonderful," said June Radintz, a 60-year-old retired nurse and Republican from Long Lake. "It sounds like she doesn't go with the flow. I'm tired of the same old rhetoric. She's refreshing."

The sight of a candidate for national office with an infant child captivated some mothers. But many said that their own experience made them wonder how Palin could handle campaigning, never mind helping to run the country, while caring for an infant son with Down syndrome.

"I have a 2-year-old and a 2-month-old, and I can hardly handle going to my regular job, let alone trotting around the world," said Serena Picken, a 25-year-old undeclared voter who works as a nursing assistant at a facility for people with Alzheimer's disease, as she pushed her baby son, Ben.

Grey, though, dismissed such talk as sexist and said she found Palin easy to relate to - and perhaps, she said, "That makes her a more well-rounded person."