All photography by Brian Frank
If you were at the Home Depot tennis stadium in Carson, California, on Saturday afternoon, you might have gotten the impression that the Republicans had managed to recruit their own rock star for the 2008 election. The McCain campaign had heretofore lacked the sort of mosh-pit adoration that Barack Obama seemed to inspire even before he announced his bid for the presidency. But vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, over “pressed” by the media and mocked by pundits and comedians alike for her down-home demeanor (which appeals to some and repulses others) and supposed lack of experience, drew an overflow crowd at a venue that normally holds 8,000 people.
With campaign stickers referring to her as “Sarah-cuda” and “Sarah Pit Bull,” Palin’s appeal to conservative voters seemed to lie in her aggressiveness, but she also tapped into Republican nostalgia for the Ronald Reagan era. And, of course, she’s got the look. One young man—bolstered by his friend’s whisper, “She’s hot man!”—took advantage of a moment’s quiet before Palin started speaking to yell through a rolled-up magazine, “Marry me, Sarah Palin!”
Throughout the speech, Palin couldn’t go more than a few lines before the crowd erupted with cheers or booing (when she mentioned the enemy camp). And she was nearly assaulted by the crowd when all was said and done, smiling like a media darling and signing her autograph for as many people as she could before she had to leave the stadium. People were pressed so tightly together, one woman had to climb atop a man’s shoulders to get a clear shot.