St. Paul — Sarah Palin’s speech here was so high stakes, that Fox News was running a countdown clock. Two Alaskan delegates came by while I was eating a Crispy Walleye Wrap and fried cheese curds. Yes, the concession stands in the Xcel Energy Center have non-local options, but I figured while in Minnesota, I ought to eat like a Minnesotan. I asked the Alaskans what their reaction was when they heard that Palin was the pick. “Yes!” one cheered, launching her fist in an enthusiastic pump that nearly met my forehead. “So what do you think of the media’s treatment of her since the announcement?” “You won’t be able to print it.” “I can clean it up.” “You still won’t be able to print it… It’s what everyone else here has been saying.” We shared a laugh, and I asked her what they felt about seeing the sudden scrutiny, and aspects of Palin’s life that have suddenly become under the most intense media spotlights. This delegate, a seasoned citizen if not a senior citizen, put a hand on my shoulder. “In Alaska, we pick our friends carefully. A friend means something in Alaska. You have to depend on them. And Sarah Palin is our friend.” This woman’s earnest description of Alaskans needing to depend on their friends reminded me of the stories of the state’s extraordinary environment from former residents. One described a lament of winter, about going to the store and having to leave the motor running in his cars so that the tires wouldn’t freeze to the road. I came across this description of the otherworldly cold in a travel book, Alaska, by Jim DuFresne, Paige R. Penland, Don Root:

The winters can be brutally cold. The temperature stays below 0 degrees Fahrenheit for months and can drop to 60 degrees below Fahrenheit or even lower for days at a time. The days are short, as short as three or four hours, and the nights are cold. It’s so cold in the winter that parking meters come equipped with sockets for plugging in the heaters that cars have around their transmission, oil pan and battery. When it’s -60 degrees Fahrenheit, unprotected fingers became numb in seconds, beards and mustaches freeze and turn into icicles in minutes and water thrown out of a second-floor window shatters as ice when it hits the ground.
When it’s 60 degrees below Fahrenheit, planes don’t fly into Fairbanks for fear that their landing gears will freeze up; the mail isn’t delivered; state employees are not required to work; and tires freeze. This strange phenomenon is known as ‘square tires,’ because the bottoms of the tires mold to the flat surface of the road. When you take off, they’re simply pulled off the rims.”

Life in Alaska includes making dozens of seemingly mundane decisions that may have life-and-death consequences. Getting into a car without a coat might mean death, if you skid off the road and end up in a snowdrift. Children walk to the school bus stop in pitch black darkness. Diesel fuel can turn to gel. The worst cold snap in Fairbanks lasted 40 straight days, with the weatherman beginning his report, “I’m sorry folks, there’s no end in sight.” Now, I don’t doubt that Barack Obama has had some challenging moments in his life. In Indonesia, his stepfather taught him boxing after a bully hit him in the head with a rock. In Dreams From My Father, Obama describes a run-in with some tough guys in Chicago, playing their radio too loud for the neighborhood late at night. He describes hitting the ground as a dispute down the street suddenly involves gunfire. In Indonesia, he had a bad cut and had to fight. But life beyond the south side of Chicago has its own challenges, an environment where insufficient preparation can have dire consequences, and mere exposure to the elements can mean injury or death. In that environment, the unreliable is quickly weeded out. And so perhaps reliability is at the heart of Alaskan’s deep admiration for Palin — an 86-percent approval rating, 63 percent strongly favorable, 75-percent approval among Democrats, 97-percent approval among Alaska Republicans. (That three percent might be Sen. Ted Stevens, Rep. Don Young, and Frank Murkowski.) Alaska doesn’t take it easy on the weak. They pick their friends carefully… and, perhaps we will conclude, wisely. – Jim Geraghty writes the Campaign Spot for NRO.