OMAK — Omak Democrat Peg Finch had already decided she would vote for Barack Obama in November.
Then John McCain went and did the one thing he could do to convince her otherwise. He picked her niece, Sarah Palin, to run with him as vice president.
Finch said she and her husband, Dick, were entertaining company from Oklahoma when her sister called and told her to turn on the television.
“I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘Just turn it on. It’s about Sarah,’ ” she recalled.
So she turned on the television and newscasters were all talking about McCain’s pick for vice president.
Finch said she didn’t even know her sister’s daughter was being considered for vice president. “It was a complete shock,” she said in an interview at her home Friday.
Finch said she doesn’t consider herself a “die-hard” Democrat. But she nearly always votes for a Democrat, she said.
So, with Palin on the Republican ticket, “I was conflicted,” she said. “But if you knew Sarah. She’s so hard-working. I knew her when she was mayor, I went up, and she had just had Piper. She had her in her little baby cradle, and there she was working away.”
She doesn’t agree with everything her niece believes, but she’s not going to talk about politics — not with a reporter.
Finch said it’s been hard to believe some of the things she’s seen and read about her sister’s daughter since she was selected.
“Anything negative that I knew was not true, I cried,” she said. “It hurts me when they hurt my family. But Sarah, she appears to be letting it roll off her back,” she said.
What’s even worse are some of the fabrications on the Internet. Someone told her about a bikini-clad, gun-toting woman with a photo of Sarah’s head pasted on.
“Don’t look. That’s what my sister said,” she said.
But most of the attention has been positive. Last weekend, Finch went to her 45th reunion at Richland High School, and her sister, Sal Heath — Palin’s mother — was attending her 50th reunion.
“It was unreal. People wanting to take pictures with me, pictures with Sal. It seems like people like her a whole lot,” she said.
It’s all been a bit much for this quiet Omak woman. “I don’t like being in the spotlight. That’s why I live in a small town,” she said.
Last week, Federal Express delivered three boxes of McCain-Palin T-shirts, hats, posters, bumper stickers, buttons and other campaign material.
Finch didn’t know they were coming. She figures she’s supposed to distribute them, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
“The driver wanted to buy a T-shirt,” she said.
To Finch, it seems like McCain’s choice of Palin as vice president has generated more energy and media attention than she can remember in other elections — but then, maybe it just seems like that because she’s family.
“She’s a great gal — very loving and generous and kind and nonjudgmental as far as I can see. She’s almost generous to a fault,” she said. A couple of years ago, Palin sent her a huge box with king crab legs at Christmas.
Finch said after Palin was selected, Palin’s daughter Bristol called to see if they wanted tickets to the Republican convention. Finch couldn’t imagine navigating the crowds. And it was all so sudden.
“We said, ‘No, but save us tickets to the inauguration,’ ” she said.
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