Jackson Hole Republicans, along with the rest of the country, were eagerly awaiting the speech by Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential pick Wednesday at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
 
Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, has been squarely in the media spotlight since McCain announced her as his running mate Friday in Ohio. But Jackson Hole participants say they, and other convention-goers, still don’t feel they know the woman who could be second in line for the presidency.
 
“She needs to explain a little more about her background and sell the audience on her experience,” said Joe Schloss, chairman of the Teton County Republican Party, who is in the Twin Cities for the convention. “She needs to be vetted because we don’t know much about her. She is a beautiful woman, a very attractive and engaging person, but one thing I am a little concerned about is people want to know more about her experience level.”
 
Though many in the media and the Democratic Party have questioned Palin’s knowledge of federal policy issues, Schloss said she still needs to cement herself as a national-level politician and tell her personal story to voters before moving on to more technical policy issues.
 
“If she can sell herself well and she can pull it off, that would be a huge help to McCain,” Schloss said. “The Republicans I have seen will all support her, but there is a little concern that, God forbid, something should happen to the president, would she be prepared to take over.”
 
Jackson Hole resident Diana Vaughan, who is in Minnesota as the chairwoman of the Wyoming Republican Party, was confident Palin would say what she needed to, in the way she needed to, to win over party faithful and independents.
 
“If she does as well as she did the first time I saw her speak when Senator McCain asked her to run — I thought she was fabulous then — everyone in the country will understand tonight why he chose her,” Vaughan said. “We are very fortunate to have her on the ticket and she has really created a lot of excitement here.”
 
As the threats to the Gulf states from Hurricane Gustav subsided Tuesday, convention-goers were able to refocus on the Republican Party, and their candidate for president.
 
“Everyone is really excited,” Vaughan said on her way to a caucus to discuss McCain as a candidate. “I am looking forward to the speakers this evening and the role-call vote.”
 
But not everything was party politics, Vaughan said.
 
Members of the Wyoming delegation took Wednesday morning to help assemble comfort packages for people displaced by the hurricane, Vaughan said. She and other Jackson Hole participants boxed up donated personal items.
 
“Probably about 15 people from Wyoming sat in a line with soap and toothpaste and toothbrushes and hand sanitizer and shampoo and put all those things in [boxes],” she said. “We just kept packing all these boxes.”
 
Some of the underlying excitement of any major political event is the chance to run into famous figures in the party, and Vaughan and company just missed one of the biggest while packing care boxes.
 
“Talk about a day late and a dollar short,” she said, laughing. “The majority of us had left and Senator McCain showed up.”