Tim,
A friend of mine has been watching the conventions and speeches much more than I do. She really liked parts of Palin's speech, but was turned off by negative statements and implications about Obama. Of course is normally the VP candidates job to pull down the other side, and from what I saw of the speech Palin did a good job of it without coming off as mean spirited.
I think it is to be expected that someone, who supports a candidate to the point of buying (and wearing?) his T-shirt, would be a little rattled when she hears a credible criticism of her candidate - quite possibly for the first time, given the media coverage.
She saw a recent speech by McCain and was really impressed. She even seemed to be wavering in her support for Obama, but in the end I think she will wind up voting for Obama. Almost all her friends are Obama supporters, she has an Obama t-shirt, buys in to the whole idea of "change" (without the details of the change seemingly being all that important) etc.
One issue that pulls her toward the Republican side is oil. She basically supports drill everywhere, drill now. Other issues pull her more to the Democrats, but in the end I think she will vote Democrat because she identifies more with them, and hangs around more people who support them, rather than for concrete policy reasons. That's not uncommon. A lot of people vote mostly because of such reasons, and I'd say a majority vote at least partially for such reasons.
It seems that McCain campaign at least got her attention...
Joe |
