Kentucky Steelworker says even some Republicans are panning Palin
By BERRY CRAIG
CALVERT CITY , Ky. – Steelworker Brandon Duncanis wary of polls that say Sarah Palin has fired up the Republican faithful.
He recently flew from Paducah, near Calvert City, to Phoenix, and back. He had to change planes five times.
“Almost every person I sat close to happened to be a Republican,” Duncan remembered. “Every one of them said they were so disenchanted with John McCain for picking Palin they weren’t going to vote for him.”
Palin, the governor of Alaska , is a social and religious conservative. She is getting high marks from the Republican-friendly Religious Right, which had doubted McCain. “But the Republicans I met on the planes don’t like her,” said Duncan, vice president of Steelworkers Local 727 in Calvert City .
The Arizona senator’s choice of Palin as his running mate “has excited Republican voters about his candidacy, which is no small thing in a contest that continues to be so tight,” said the New York Times, citing a recent Times/CBS News poll.
Even so, the survey “suggested that Ms. Palin’s selection has, to date, helped Mr. McCain only among Republican base voters; there was no evidence of significantly increased support for him among women in general.”
Duncan, who also represents his local at the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO, isn’t sure Palin is all that popular with the GOP’s base. “All of the people I talked to said they were lifelong Republicans,” he added. “All of them said McCain and Palin don’t stand for what the party used to be.”
He said an Alabama Republican who looked like she was in her sixties complained to him that “the Republican Party is supposed to be about running the country, not focusing on abortion and religion all that. She said that there are a lot of evangelicals in Alabama who like McCain and Palin.
“But she said she won’t be voting Republican this time. She said she couldn’t tell her family. She also said she had to tell somebody, so she told me.”
Duncan, who lives in Paducah and commutes to work, recalled that on another flight, his seatmate, a North Carolina woman “who also seemed like she was in her sixties, said she always voted Republican but wasn’t going to this time because of McCain’s vice presidential pick. She said she and her friends were hoping he would pick somebody like Sen. Biden, Obama’s running mate, who has a lot of experience.
“But the woman said, ‘All McCain did was pick a pretty face and put a woman on the ticket trying to get Hillary’s voters.’”
On another flight, Duncan said he had a conversation with a retired couple from Minneapolis , site of the Republican National Convention. “They were Republicans, too,” Duncan said. “They told me when McCain picked Gov. Palin, he lost a lot of people in Minnesota . They said they weren’t going to vote for him and neither were their friends.”
Duncan said that even in Phoenix , McCain’s hometown, he met local people “totally miffed at the ticket McCain put together.”
Duncan conceded his “poll” wasn’t scientific. “But the people I met were from all over the country,” he said. “They all said they were sick and tired of the religious extremists running the Republican Party.”
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