Sarah Palin Sighting

No pictures, but Sarah Palin made a stop in Springfield, Missouri today. Initially the venue was supposed to be MacDonald Arena on the Missouri State campus, but the tickets were soon gone and people were wanting more. They moved to the parking lot of Bass Pro. She was supposed to show up at noon. People were standing -- no seats available -- standing outside Bass Pro at 6:00am. Anecdotes had folks parking a mile away and walking to see her.

We're talking plentiful platform pulchritude as Naomi Judd did a nice job opening for Governor Palin, slamming the media and the pundits for their smear tactics. Palin was welcomed enthusiastically -- once they got her out of Bass Pro -- as she said, "What a cool place." Her stump speech was pretty good and got lots of positive response.

The greater metro area of Springfield and Greene County has a population of about 300,000 or so. The estimate by AP for the crowd was 20,000. Twenty thousand people standing in a parking lot on a gloomy, chilly day.

Springfield is the heart of Republican territory in Missouri. We are the base. And the base is going all out for Palin, yeah, and whathisname that's running with her, too.

I haven't checked the polls today, but I can tell you if the pollsters are not including the broken-glass Republican base in their calculations, they are in for a surprise. I watched Gergen and some other guys on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, and came to the conclusion that the Republican elites hate Palin and us (the base) almost as much as the Democrats do. Too bad. If McCain wins, it will be because of us, the lowly and the despised. This may be the year of the "angry white male".

I am Joe.