Yes, she was a Palin voter. Her exact words were:
"I was going to vote for Obama, but now I think I'm going to vote for the other guy because I like that Sarah Palin."
emphasis mine.
The whole story on the flip
It was my older foster-daughter's ninth birthday party, at Oaks Amusement Park here in Portland. If you ever come to Portand in our sunny season (July thru September), go to Oaks Park and ride the rides. It's clean, it's not expensive, it's small enough to do the whole thing in an afternoon, big enough to have a loop-the-loop rollercoaster and a really scary thing called the Screamin' Eagle, which my six-year-old foster daughter rides alone. She's a daredevil. And it's really never crowded.
Anywho, we were there at noonish and I made a stop at the coffee cart. The woman running the coffee cart was fiftyish, glasses, conservatively dressed and coiffed. She made me an iced americano with cream and sugar and we chatted. She said something about how surprised she was at how many people were coming out to the park, given what the economy was doing.
I said something about how much we all love Oaks Park, and what a great value it is for a family day out, and how we need to elect Barack Obama to fix this mess.
That was when she made the aforementioned statement. She literally referred to McCain as "that other guy" and said she liked Sarah Palin.
I made a face and shook my head.
She said "you don't like her?"
I almost almost said "she's dumber than a box of rocks" but I stopped myself because this nice woman had just told me she likes Palin and if I wanted to sway her opinion, I had to not offend her.
So I said "you know, I can really appreciate what she's done, how far she's come, with a big family and all. That's not easy. But she's just not up for the job." I could see, in my quarry's body language, that she knew this to be true. She's just not up for the job.
But she asked me "you think so?"
I said "Oh, yes. I mean, she has no experience or knowledge of the economy, or foreign policy. Because she can see Russia from Alaska? That's her qualification?"
Quarry nodded in assent. I pushed on.
"I have Vietnamese neighbors. Does that make me qualified?"
She laughed and said no. I knew I was done. To push it further would have been annoying. So I said "well, think about it. I really think Obama's the right guy."
She said "you know, I think I am leaning back to Obama now" and maybe she was just being nice to her customer, maybe she was just wanting me to go away. But I was there and I watched her body language, and she knew that her affinity for Sarah Palin was not enough of a reason to vote for her.
One more vote flipped, and if Oregon goes blue by two votes in November, I'll know it's mine and coffee lady's.
Love
Don Overwith