Palin, weather go rogue in Fairfax

Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin visited Fairfax last Saturday while promoting her memoir ‘Going Rogue’

By Chase Johnson

December 7, 2009

2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a stop on her national book tour at BJ’s Wholesale Club in Fairfax last Saturday to meet supporters and promote her book, “Going Rogue.”

If the former governor of Alaska was feeling homesick, she picked a good day to drop in on Northern Virginia, as the season’s first snowfall blanketed the area surrounding Fair Lakes Shopping Center with up to four inches of snow.

The inclement weather didn’t deter a crowd of 2,200 from showing up to meet Palin and her family, including husband Todd, infant son Trig and her father Chuck Heath. Some supporters showed up the night before, sleeping in tents to ensure being among the first to see the popular but divisive politician.

The event brought people from the region as well as other surrounding states, some as far as South Carolina, which wasn’t included on Palin’s tour. Out-of-towners, including Roger Torres of Silver Spring, Md., purchased memberships to the warehouse store because they were required for entrance.

The crowd was made up mostly of strong Palin supporters, many of whom were enthusiastic about a possible run for the presidency in 2012.

Cathy Woodbrey of Jeffersonton said she asked Palin about the possibility as she got her book signed, but Palin demurred, as she has since the end of the 2008 campaign.

Woodbrey and her husband Barry said they are happy to see Palin taking the lead in the Republican Party, and would like to see her run for the party’s nomination in 2012. But Cathy said she’d support whichever path Palin chose.

“Anything she does is great,” she said.

Many political commentators, both liberal and conservative, have labeled Palin as the leader of a conservative movement within the Republican Party, a perception that has made her a divisive figure in the country, but extremely popular among Republicans.

The majority of her supporters who came to see her on Saturday embraced her conservative politics and didn’t think that her divisiveness was a problem.

“Previously people were saying they didn’t want to vote because there was no choice,” Jill Cummings of Fairfax said. “When you have divisiveness you have decisions to make and people come out to vote. I think it’s important.”

Despite the grey skies and slippery roads, the cold Palin fans seemed very upbeat about seeing one of their political heroes and hopeful for her chances going forward. Many cited Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell’s victory in typically liberal Fairfax County last November as reason to believe that Palin could be back in Northern Virginia in 2012.

Barbara McClelland of Fairfax said she sees similarities between Palin and McDonnell, who ran for governor as a moderate conservative.

“I’m not so sure that she’s that conservative,” she said. “You look at her moves as a parent, and she’s right there with the rest of us who have kids. I think there’s going to be a huge swing [in 2012].”

The one group that the snow did seem to deter was protestors. The store set up a designated area for protestors roughly 400 yards away from the store’s entrance, but that area was empty most of the day.