Sarah Palin Wows the Crowd at the Pony Express Pavilion in Nevada's State Capitol

The local Carson City newspaper, the Nevada Appeal had advised people to get to the Pony Express Pavilion at Mills Park as early as 8am to get in line for Sarah Palin's 5:45pm speech. I got there at 9am to see three people waiting for the doors to open at 2pm. I went back home, ate a sandwich, and grabbed my hand held police scanner. Perhaps I could be privy to something the general public was not. That turned out to be a mistake. When I returned to Mills Park at 11am and sat down 50 yards from the pavilion entrance it wasn't 5 minutes until I was approached by Carson City sheriff's officers who politely asked me to produce my ID. They conducted a field interrogation wanting to know exactly what I was doing. I explained to them I intended to write an article about the event. They wanted to know for whom I was doing the article, and I told them Associated Content. They took all the information down then asked me for my home phone number, in case they needed to get in touch with me. I asked them why they needed to check me out, and they said it was because of the scanner. I in turn asked them about some of the security protocols and they refused to answer. However, previous to this encounter I questioned a different officer as to how closely they were working with the Secret Service and was told that though they were separate from the Secret Service, they had been briefed as to what the Secret Service basically wanted them to do. They were not allowed however to comment on their political affiliations.

I left my park bench and strolled the midway where various booths were set up where they were selling McCain/ Palin gear. McCain T-shirts were ten dollars, Palin T-shirts were twenty. Hats were ten dollars for McCain, and twenty five for Palin. Buttons, bumper stickers, and placards were also being sold, all of it pretty pricey if you ask me. There were a few individuals plying the crowd on foot with buttons set up on a cardboard sheet. I briefly interviewed one girl selling buttons. Her name was Brianna. She told me that she was getting 10% of her total sales. She was undecided as a voter. The funny thing is, she didn't even know what she would be doing there the night before, or the name of the group she was working with. She was referred by her boyfriend.

The only table that wasn't affiliated with the RNC was staffed by Carson City High School, they sold one dollar bottles of water. The temperature got into the 90's.

I then spoke with one of twenty three search and rescue personnel who told me they had set up an all weather tent for the Secret Service. Search and rescue was also there to help direct traffic and attend to anyone who might suffer from heat exhaustion. Carson County, and Nye County police were also on hand, along with K-9 units who searched around various outbuildings, and perused the line that was steadily growing. I remembered that the morning newspaper's article stated that only cameras would be allowed into the pavilion, and wondered if I would be able to get in with my police scanner. I went to the front entrance and asked a young Secret Service agent if I could bring it inside. She said no, so I got on my bicycle and took it home. I live on the other side of town, but it didn't take me 45 minutes to get back to the pavilion. Carson City is a small town. I didn't glean much information from my scanner other than some vehicles being investigated, and a street race happening on the other side of town.

On my return I got into the line which had now stretched around the building. Much of the area had been cordoned off earlier by city jail trustees in the care of a few sheriffs. 2pm finally arrived and the line started moving, albeit slowly. There were a few horse mounted police who had the line tighten up. I took a few pictures and said thanks but no thanks to half a dozen volunteers that wanted to sign me up to become a phone volunteer. I finally made it to the metal detectors and went through without incident. Once inside, I made my way up to the front and settled in ten rows back, there were no seats for the general public so I stood with everyone else. There was the requisite press bleachers in the center of the pavilion, and bleachers behind the stage and off to the sides for some select individuals, hockey moms, cheerleaders, Chuck Yeager (he got big applause) and other VIP's. A country and western musical group had a side stage. The Silver Wing Band belted out tune after tune which I did not recognize, (I'm a rock and roller) they did finally play Twist and Shout, and treated the group to a rendition of Johnny Be Good, but altered the lyrics somewhat to, Sarah Be Good. Carson High cheerleaders led a few chants. I was amazed at the number of NRA T-shirts, and even saw a new one, The Practical Shooting Club. I asked the gentleman wearing the T-shirt about this club and was informed it was a civilian combat school of sorts.

When I heard a helicopter flying around outside, I knew we were getting close. Carson City doesn't have an eye in the sky, so it was the RAVEN II Police helicopter from Reno escorting Sarah Palin's two bus caravan. But first a pastor had the crowd bow their heads while he prayed for the republican ticket. We were then directed to turn to the flag and everyone recited the Pledge of Allegiance. After that, Congressman Dean Heller's wife sang a beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that brought a tear to my eye. The Pony Express Pavilion was not even 3/4 full when the opening act of republican politicians were trotted out on stage to whip up the crowd. And whip up the crowd they did

Senator John Ensign told everyone, "the deficit has doubled since the democrats took over, they want to spend your money." He wanted the crowd to tell everyone who owned a gun to vote for McCain/Palin. He spoke of opening up oil exploration in the U.S. and the crowd began chanting, "drill baby drill, drill baby drill." It was something to hear. He finished by letting the crowd know that it was up to rural Nevada to turn the state red and elect McCain/Palin.

Congressman Dean Heller told a joke at democratic VP nominee Joe Biden's expense where he (Biden) is robbed by a thief who eventually tells the senator, "Okay, give me all of my money then, ha ha. He went on to say that Washington wanted to "raise our taxes, take away our guns, and remove us from our land.

Other Nevada politicians presented were, Nevada Supreme Court Judge Kristina Pickering, Assembly men James Settelmeyer and Ty Cobb (no, not the ballplayer). Assembly woman Heidi Gansert who let everyone know that being a mother of four has prepared Sarah Palin to lead," and women are more than the lipstick they wear. The last to speak before Sarah Palin was Nevada Lieutenant Govenor Brian Krolicki. He was the biggest cheerleader of them all. He instructed the crowd to really wave those signs. This is McCain/Palin country. We have a turbocharged campaign and the democrats would rather talk about lipstick. And oh yeah, Sarah Palin can field dress a moose. The crowd went nuts when Sarah Palin finally came inside the 3500 max capacity pavilion at 5:45pm. A jumbotron had been set up for those outside, it wasn't much bigger than my brother-in-laws wide screen TV. Like I said, Carson City is a small town.

Unfortunately, I heard nothing new from Sarah Palin. Same joke about putting her jet plane on ebay. Same stuff about the bridge to nowhere that she defeated. She let everyone know that we would shake things up, and stand up to the "good ol' boy" network. She let everyone know that she vetoed half a billion dollars of earmarks in Alaska. And how proud we are to be Americans. To her credit she did mention hurricane Ike and the help that Texas will receive in the wake of the disaster. Her speech didn't last 20 minutes. I timed it at 15.

On the way out I took a few pictures of assembled protesters, and was given a Palin poster that was selling for five dollars before the event started. Earlier, while waiting in line to get in, I had told a woman who looked a little like Julia Roberts that if she waited until after the whole thing was over, they most likely would be drastically reducing the price of buttons and such, and might possibly be giving them away. Just like at the end of any pep rally/rock concert. I guess I was right. But that's what the whole thing reminded me of, a high school pep rally on steroids.