EW: I’ll be curious to hear about the make-up in the audience.
JDM: I’ll put my take on that up here later today.

Ok, I didn’t get in. Event was inside, I was told seating was 1200 and preticketed. AFAIK, this thing wasn’t announced ’till yesterday (???), so I guess one may have to be plugged into McCain’s operation to be aware of scheduling and such.

I was going mostly to observe, out of my own sense of focused, irrational curiosity.

Makeup of crowd by my unscientific estimates was +/- 50% young folks (22 and under… students?), the rest 30+ somethings well up to 60 or so. Not many older than that, however… eg. Soc Sec age.

I hung out in line for about 1/2 hr. till it became clear they’d have cacpacity (I was told I could get in if seats unfilled). I was with group of 4 women:
– late 50s retired military med lab tech, started a FARMERS INS office 5 yrs ago… says she’s doing great.
– 20 yr old sophomore RN student @ UNM, grew up in rural NM. Says her mom got pregnant w/her @ age 18… almost had an abortion then couldn’t go through w/it. Says mom collected welfare to pay bills/college, then raised this young woman & her younger sister. She said all this in context of blasting Obama for wanting to “tax to pay for abortions.” Kind’a simple minded IMO: a lot of “I love Heather Wilson”, “I hate Udall”… pretty much down the line. She also had much to say about “nobody understanding what’s going on w/economy”, including her “liberal sociology professor”… in which case, she may have been correct.
– Sister of above (RN student)… quiet, didn’t say much.
– Friend of RN from Los Alamos, no college/working as office person at lab up there. Evangelical X’stian, vocal (and irrational IMO) about it, and echoed same memes as RN: Obama wants to “kill babies”, “raise taxes”, etc. etc.

They all love Palin.

Mostly I just listened.

I did speak up wrt collective opinion of these women that “nobody understands” what’s going on w/economy. I put out a precise timeline back to ‘98, what was legislated & what followed, etc etc. The FARMERS’ woman thought Sarbane/Oxley was deregulation law (rather than correction for deregulation after Enron). The young student and her friend both thought “welfare state” was the problem.

They all just looked at me blank & empty eyed after I said my piece re “how we got here” wrt economy… clearly, they hadn’t heard any of this and it struck them somehow. Also clear they just don’t know what’s going on.

I wasn’t there to pick a fight and didn’t. But this is the state of things… a lot of ignorance, and a lot of bad information out there.

Good luck. Unsettling times, these!

When she meets Cheney. Hope her first question is “Can I call ya Dick”?

you just provided me with a a vision of what hell has in store for dick cheney

satan will probably use anna nicole smith on cheney instead of sarah palin

sarah would be better punishment for the repuglitards other dick

and nixon’s been waitin for a room mate in hell for a long time now …

http://emptywheel.firedoglake……ent-104352