For the Republican Base, Palin Pick Is Energizing

On Feb. 12 in Alexandria, John McCain celebrated his victory in Virginia's Republican primary. Turnout among conservatives in Hampton Roads could be crucial in the swing state in November. (By Alex Wong -- Getty Images)

"Everything was pretty lackluster," said Earl Hall, the volunteer representative for Surry, who is far more excited now that Palin's in the picture: "She's right good-looking -- that's all I need to know."

In Isle of Wight County, a GOP stronghold just west of Portsmouth and home to the ham capital of Smithfield -- Bush won 63 percent of the vote there in 2004 -- the county party had gone defunct until last month, when several previous members and several new arrivals decided that, with the election coming up, they ought to resurrect it.

They placed an ad in the paper and called 100 names on the old membership list. A dozen people expressed interest, and they now meet every other week. On Thursday, they organized a house party to watch McCain's speech. Thirteen people showed up to watch and dine on snacks with American-flag paper plates and napkins. Their reaction to McCain's speech was muted, with some of the loudest applause coming when he mentioned Palin.

They also plan to set up a table at the county fair, but otherwise their outreach has been limited -- a few sessions of phone-calling and a few door-to-door canvasses by a couple of core members, during which they distributed generic GOP literature because they have not yet received any McCain brochures. They have had trouble getting bumper stickers and have run out of lawn signs. They still need to assign captains for most of the county's dozen precincts, and will not expect anything from those volunteers except manning the polls on Election Day -- unlike the Obama campaign, which expects precinct captains to spend weeks finding ways to reach out to their neighbors.

John Brannis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and military contractor employee who volunteered for the Bush campaign in the county in 2004, was not concerned, saying that calling voters or knocking on their door was not worth the effort -- Republicans had done fine in 2004 despite doing little of that. It is more effective, he said, to chat with people on his daily rounds, like the older woman who asked him to pump her gas the other day.

"People here know that if you want to know about Republican Party, talk to J.B. Brannis," he said. "It needs to be about personal relationships."

Cristina Morris, who moved to Isle of Wight last year from Fairfax County with her husband, an officer with the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, was surprised that she has wound up as the chairwoman of the resurrected county party. "We didn't think we'd be running it, but someone has to do it," she said.

The picture is similar around the area. In Surry, Hall has not gone door to door yet, saying that "it's too expensive driving around." "If people can't get the information they need now with all the media floating around, then they've got a problem," he said. In Suffolk, Steve Trent, a salesman leading the volunteer effort, is holding off on canvassing until he has literature for all the GOP candidates on the ticket. But, he said, Palin's instant celebrity will overcome any delays.

"What woman do you know who could shoot a moose, field-dress it and serve it?" he said. "This has really energized the conservative side of the house."

Gail Gitcho, a McCain spokeswoman in Virginia, said that the campaign is satisfied with its progress and that Palin's selection was already having palpable effects, most visibly in an increase in the number of women volunteers turning out to make phone calls at the campaign's offices. "We have a lot more work to do but we're feeling very good about Virginia," she said.

How much evangelical Christian support McCain would have drawn without Palin is open to debate. It was in Virginia Beach, home to Pat Robertson's Regent University, that he gave his 2000 speech labeling Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." But he later reconciled with them and impressed evangelical Christians with his performance at a forum at the Saddleback mega-church in California last month.

Palin's appeal among evangelical Christians may not be universal. Some may be put off by her overt religious references, as when she called the war in Iraq a "task that is from God" at an Alaska church and asked members of the congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline she is trying to get built. Many younger evangelicals have elevated issues such as global warming, which Palin does not think is necessarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

But Charles W. Dunn, dean of the government school at Regent University, said that her stances on "family values" issues "trump the others" and that evangelical Christians have been "transformed into worker bees" as a result of her selection. "Early returns suggest an all-out embrace. She has created a buzz like I've never seen before," he said. "These folks felt hopeless, and all of a sudden they've been given hope overnight and beyond measure."

Peyton White, a McCain activist in Newport News, concurred, saying that she would feel much more comfortable now in approaching other members of her church to help campaign, because they identify with Palin and see her as paving the way for others like them. "People see her as one of them," she said. "There's a feeling that this is something all of us could be transformed into, because she's done it now."