Schweppe has ringside seat

Yakima's Al Schweppe hadn't even heard John McCain's nomination speech yet on Thursday, and already he believed he'd witnessed history at the Republican National Convention.

Like pundits across the country, Schweppe was impressed with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's vice presidential nomination speech Wednesday. In it, Palin went after Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and presented herself as a feisty hockey mom unafraid of the political spotlight despite her small-town roots.

"It was a fantastic speech," Schweppe said by phone from the St. Paul, Minn., convention floor Thursday afternoon. "I believe it's going to go down as one of the best political speeches in the last 100 years."

It's one that will have particular appeal to voters in the West generally and in Central Washington specifically, the 47-year-old Yakima attorney and McCain delegate said. Palin's firebrand version of conservatism is consistent with the independent, reform-minded Western spirit, he said.

"She has the power to attract those people who maybe are not in one party or the other but tend to be conservative," Schweppe said.

Palin, whom McCain named as his running mate last week, is a political neophyte with only two years as governor and a six-year tenure as the mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, on her political resume. Controversy has surrounded her since she was tapped for the job -- from allegations that she misused her office to settle a personal score with a state trooper to the revelation that her 17-year-old unwed daughter is pregnant.

But none of that cooled the reception she got from Republicans at the convention. The speech on Wednesday went a long way in terms of her credibility, Schweppe said.

"She went right after Barack Obama and the Democrats," he explained. "Any role that John McCain asks her to fill, she can do it."

Schweppe, who has worked on several presidential campaigns and is the Yakima County chairman for McCain's, is fulfilling a 32-year-old dream in attending the convention. As a 16-year-old in 1976, he wrote then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan a letter of support, saying he planned to be a delegate one day.

Now that the day has come, Schweppe is enjoying sharing the rarefied air of some of his GOP heroes.

"Newt Gingrich walked by and Mitt Romney -- Mitt Romney was like 10 feet from me at one point," he said.

* Pat Muir can be reached at 577-7693 or at pmuir@yakimaherald.com.