Governor Palin Thrills Right to Life Crowd in Indiana
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told a sold-out crowd in Indiana that she was 13 weeks into her pregnancy with her child, Trig, when she found out that he had Down Syndrome. Weight the devastating news, the pro-life mom said she briefly wondered about terminating the pregnancy.
She said discovered she was pregnant while out of state attending an oil and gas conference. “I thought, nobody knows me here. Nobody will ever know … It is easy to think of maybe trying to change the circumstances.”
Palin added, “I had to ask myself, am I compassionate enough to take care of this child?”
But when Trig was born, Palin said, “I felt a love that I had never felt before, and compassion that I didn’t even know. Trig is a miracle, and he has brought us amazing and surprising happiness.”
As for Palin’s successful first public appearance since the November election, Thomas B. Langhorne writing in the Evansville Courier & Press write some behind-the-scenes comments of Governor Palin‘s appearance at the sold out Vanderburgh County Right to Life Banquet last week. Here are some excerpts:
It wasn’t supposed to be a political event, but try telling that to a man who has seen 2,200 people react when he walks into a banquet hall. Sgt. Robert Goedde, a sheriff’s officer who was at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s side throughout her 17-hour stay in Evansville, says Palin was besieged at Thursday’s Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet by people urging her to run for president in 2012.
The exhortations, which Goedde called a constant refrain, began as soon as he and Palin and other officers began making their way to the banquet’s head table through surging crowds in The Centre’s assembly hall. The journey, during which Palin was mobbed by people seeking autographs and pictures, took 20 minutes.
“Some people would shout it out, and you’d see others just asking her,” Goedde said. “I heard it two or three times a minute, the entire time. She’d just smile and wave. She was very gracious.”
Nick Hermann, chairman of the Vanderburgh County Republican Party, said Palin’s personal magnetism is also a key to her appeal. “She has great stage presence, but she also works the crowd well,” Hermann said. “It’s unusual to have both. Mike Huckabee, for instance, works the crowd well but doesn’t have the stage presence.”
“The Right to Life banquet (at which Palin teared up over her baby son who was born with Down syndrome and spoke openly of her teenage daughter’s pregnancy) was the first time I’ve seen her really open up and talk about her story, her feelings,” he said. “Sometimes, politicians seem too perfect. She really connected with people.”
It was a sentiment expressed over and over again by people who met Palin while she was in Evansville, including several young servers at Biaggi’s Ristorante Italiano who waited on the Alaska governor at Friday’s private breakfast event hosted by S.M.I.L.E. on Down syndrome.
“It didn’t even feel like you were in front of somebody that was famous,” said server Chrissy Heffernan. “It felt like you were in front of somebody that you’ve known forever. She was just very nice, very personable, very personable.”
Goedde, who headed up a detail of about 20 city and county law enforcement officers who volunteered or were compensated by Right to Life to guard Palin, said he made a point of watching the Alaska governor’s interactions with people.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to watch and see if there’s ever a sign that this is all a put-on,’” he said. “I never saw it. Never once did I see her say or do anything that made her look less than sincere, like rolling her eyes when no one was looking. She was just like a hometown girl from Evansville, Ind., coming home after making good.”
Goedde marveled at Palin’s ability to remember the first names of people she met and to connect with each of the law enforcement officers who protected her. People looked up to her almost in a rock star way, but it was also with respect, not just ‘Oh, Sarah, Sarah,’” he said. “I don’t know any other way to say it, but this lady is the real deal.”
Palin made a similar impression on Nina Fuller, who shared a private breakfast with her and about a half-dozen other people Friday morning before the larger event at Biaggi’s. “There was not a political word in the conversation,” said Fuller, executive director of S.M.I.L.E. “Gov. Palin is now a good friend of mine, and her name is Sarah.”
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/apr/19/banquet-displayed-pali…
