Now she intends to cast a ballot for Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.
“I think Sarah Palin is an excellent choice, and not just because she’s a woman,” Riordan said before Thursday’s McCain-Palin rally at the Resch Center. “It’s good to have a governor on one of the tickets. … I think she brings a different set of skills.”
Like others in the crowd of about 10,000 at the rally, Riordan was interested to hear what Palin had to say, and said the mother of five adds excitement to the ticket.
“For us it was always going to be Hillary first, then McCain,” she said. Her husband, Larry, also is a registered Democrat. They have a grandson working on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and a stepson who worked on Democrat John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004, and a long history of voting for Democrats, she said. But she said Obama’s politics are too far to the left for her taste.
Riordan made the switch based on politics, not gender, she said.
“I hope at some point we become gender and race neutral,” Riordan said. She and her husband, who spend winters in Florida, will vote there. “For me it had nothing to do with gender.”
Friends Angela Yingling and Janell Burr of Green Bay said they attended the rally mostly to hear Palin speak.
“I think it was phenomenal,” Burr said after the rally. “I wasn’t sure before, but I work with kids with disabilities, and I love what I heard her say.”
“She’s so down to earth,” Yingling added.
Kelly Watras of Fremont said it wasn’t Palin alone that brought her to the rally.
“I would’ve come anyway,” Watras said. “But she brings energy to the campaign. She’s a breath of fresh air.”
Nancy Meilahn of Oshkosh, who attended with Watras, said: “She tells it like it is. She thinks outside the box.”
Patti Zarling writes for the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
