Dudes for Sarah Palin

NY Times:

It is not unusual for fans of Sarah Palin to shout out to the Alaska governor in the midst of her stump speeches. It is noteworthy, however, that the crowds are heavily male.

“You rock me out, Sarah,” yelled one man, wearing a red-checked hunting jacket as Ms. Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, strode into an airplane hangar here on Thursday. He held a homemade “Dudes for Sarah” sign and wore a National Rifle Association hat. Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” blared over the loudspeakers, and the man even danced a little — yes, a guy in an N.R.A. hat dancing in a hangar, kind of a Sarah Palin rally thing.

“I feel like I’m at home,” Ms. Palin said, looking out at a boisterous crowd of about 6,000. “I see the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots,” she said, the first reference being to a clothing brand favored by construction workers and the burly types who make up much of the “Sarah Dude” population. “You guys are great,” she said while signing autographs.

Guys think Ms. Palin is great, too, or at least many of those who come to hear her. They sometimes go to extraordinary lengths. “I woke up at 2 a.m. so I could get my work done before 6 and get here by 7,” said Mike Spencer, a chef from Dexter, Me. Mr. Spencer waited in the chilly hangar — in a “Nobama” T-shirt — for almost three hours.

At the height of Palinmania, soon after she made her national debut in September, Ms. Palin’s popularity among men was striking. Her favorability ratings were higher among men than women (44 percent to 36 percent), according to a New York Times poll, even though she was chosen in part because of her expected appeal to women. Since then, Ms. Palin has endured a tough month politically, and her favorability ratings have dropped among both sexes, but more so among men (down 13 points, to 31 percent in the latest Times poll.)

She has been widely attacked, even by a growing number of conservatives, as being essentially unserious and uncurious. “She doesn’t think aloud. She just ...says things,” the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote Friday. “She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation.”

All the while, Ms. Palin’s stoutest defenders are often the Joe Sixpacks in her crowds, who shrug off her critics, ridiculers and perceived adversaries in the news media. They say they appreciate Ms. Palin for, above all else, how “real” and “like us” she is.

“Katie Couric and Tina Fey are going to do their thing, but it doesn’t bother me at all,” said Rob McLain, an insurance agent from Avon, Ind., who attended a packed Palin rally at an amphitheatre in Indiana on Friday night. Mr. McLain wore a “Proud to be voting for a hot chick” button and was joined by his wife, Shannan (“Read my lipstick” button on lapel), and his 6-week-old son, Jaxon (“Nobama” button on beanie).

“The criticism is part of the process,” Mr. McLain said, adding of Ms. Palin, “Who can’t trust a mother?”

The testosterone flows at many of her events. Head-banging guitar chords greet her: she entered a fund-raiser in North Carolina on Thursday to the decidedly un-dainty chords of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “That was kinda cool,” she marveled from the stage. Everyone laughed. The event raised $800,000.

While there are plenty of women, including wives and daughters of male fans, at Ms. Palin’s appearances, they acknowledge they are outnumbered. “This is not a ladies campaign,” declared Linda Teegan at a rally in Weirs Beach, N.H., on Wednesday. She was taking a crowd snapshot. “There seem to be lots and lots of guys here,” she said. “I’d guess 70-30, maybe 65-35, men to women. It’s quite noticeable to me.”

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There are a lot of women who are bringing their daughters to see her as well as a lot of special needs families who are coming to her appearances. But it will be hard for the liberals and the feminist to argue that conservative men will not support a strong woman candidate.