Neither rain, nor sleet nor snow could keep a crowd of about 500 from Sarah Palin in Northern Virgina this afternoon. Perhaps due to the horrible weather conditions (bitterly cold with the first snowfall of the season) or perhaps due to the fact that this was the part of Virginia famously dubbed “fake” by Nancy Pfotenhauer last year, the crowd for Palin’s booksigning at a BJ’s Wholesale in Fairfax didn’t resemble that of earlier stops on Palin’s book tour in either size or sheer enthusiasm.
Which is not to say Palin didn’t get a warm welcome. Conservative Virginians in the crowd were excited to see the Republican rockstar a month after they turned the state red again in statewide elections.
“The tables have turned,” one said when asked if he thought Palin would win a 2012 rematch with President Obama in Virginia. “If she chooses to run, this is Sarah country now.”
It certainly didn’t feel like the Fairfax County Virginia Democrats have come to know as the blue heart of a purple state. Four anti-Palin protestors were there, shunned to a “free speech zone” about 400 yards from the crowd waiting to meet Palin outside BJ’s Wholesale. Two were Trig doubters, showing off what they said was evidence that Palin isn’t the birth mother of the youngest member of the Palin clan. There was a decided tea partyesque vibe to their conspiracy rhetoric. “Why is the media afraid to report this story?” one asked. Had they been talking about ACORN, they would have been right at home on the national mall last 9/12.
The other two protestors were just generally upset by the whole proceeding unfolding around them. They said they thought they had dealt with her last year and didn’t like having to do it again. “Virginia voted to send Sarah back to Alaska,” one said. “I wanted to make sure she got that message when she came out here today.” Neither pair could figure out what to do with Palin. They called her “dangerous” and claimed she appealed to the ugliest side of American conservatism. But they acknowledged her star power and seemingly limitless appeal to her base. They thought Palin was more than just a passing fad, but they couldn’t see a world in which Democrats could reach out to the voters Palin energizes.
As for the folks on line for the book signing, they knew exactly what to do with Palin. “She’s got my vote,” was a familiar refrain. But Palin was just one of many fantasy presidential tickets on the minds of the crowd, clearly still giddy from Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell’s sweeping win a month ago. Rep. Mike Pence (IN), Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) were all on the shortlist. Exuberance was in abundance. Numerous people spoke of how Virginia was waking up to the “lies” Obama had spun on the campaign trail and said that the McDonnell victory proved things were “getting back to normal” in the state.
“We’re not purple anymore,” one man in a sweatshirt that parodied Obama’s 2008 campaign logo and “Nope: Keep The Change” said. “[Virginia] is red again.”
Northern Virginia is unique in that many of the people that live there go to work for the federal government the day after they vote. The direct contact with the sausage making machinery means there’s a certain detachment from the celebrity of politics that manifested itself in the crowd at BJ’s. They felt Palin was a driving force in a conservative renaissance they say is just around the corner. The enthusiasm was less about Palin herself, surprisingly, than it was the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later style of politics Palin represents.
“I just want to thank her,” one young woman with a group of recent James Madison University graduates said when asked what she would do when she met Palin face to face. “I just want to wish her well after all she’s done for us [conservatives]. I’m not here to worship her.”
Late Update: Other news outlets reported larger crowds than my estimate. It should be noted that no reporters, other than photographers or videographers, were not allowed inside the large section of the BJ’s where Palin was signing books. All my reporting for this story was conducted in the parking lot outside the event.
