This week the members of the Mamie Eisenhower Republican Women’s Club of Virginia met at the Army Navy Country Club in Fairfax County in a room overlooking lush green fairways and carefully groomed sand bunkers. It was the group’s first get-together since John McCain had named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Jean Grogan, who lives in a Fairfax City retirement community, told me that she did not react wildly to the choice at first because she didn’t know much about Palin but said she’s very excited about her now because she believes Palin will breath fresh air into the party and into McCain, whom she admires greatly, but, she said, “I think he needs something.”

“What does he need?” I asked. “A breath of fresh air,” she said with a laugh.

Margaret Brigidini, of Fairfax City, the wife of a former U.S. Park Police mounted officer and the mother of a DC homicide detective, told me that what Palin doesn’t know she can learn. “I don’t think she’ll have any problem learning,” Brigidini said, “I think she’s a quick learn.”

Brigidini also said she didn’t think Charlie Gibson of ABC News was very nice to Governor Palin in his interviews with her. She added that it took a lot of nerve for Gibson to go into Palin’s home after he treated her like that, that is, in what she perceived as a chauvinistic fashion.

The President of the Mamie Eisenhower Republican Women’s Club, Madeline McDuffy, an African American woman who is the CEO of her own telecommunications firm in Washington, DC, stood in line for hours to get a glimpse of Palin as John McCain introduced his running mate to thousands of Virginia voters recently in Fairfax’s Van Dyck Park. When I asked McDuffy what it is about Palin that ignites so much enthusiasm, she said, “I think for me, it’s the excitement of having a woman on the ticket. I think it’s time for that, and I’m glad our party recognizes that it’s time to have a woman working with us in that office.”

In the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Burke, Virginia, Tenica Henry of Springfield told me that she thought the Palin move was great for women. “I’m not sure who I’m voting for,” she said, “but I think it’s wonderful in our time to see a woman out there doing something so big and amazing.”

Wal-Mart moms, of course, have replaced soccer moms and security moms as the swing block of women voters in this election. These are white women who are less affluent, slightly older and more culturally conservative; women, who are trying to hold it together for their families in the face of a tanking economy and high gasoline and food prices.

At the Starbucks in the Burke, Virginia shopping center, Gibby Ries, an active Democrat who was originally backing Chris Dodd for president, but who is now on board for Obama, told me that despite the bump in the polls, the McCain-Palin ticket doesn’t frighten her. What frightens her more is that, “People are so willing to vote for that ticket based solely on I can shoot a gun and I can kill a moose and don’t I look good in my bright red heels. That to me is deplorable,” she said. “We all have a responsibility as citizens to look into the people running for office, to find out and learn about them.”

Grace Nozaki, who has been for Obama from day one, and who joined us at the Starbucks, said she thinks the bump for Palin has crested and has now leveled off and is going down. Nozaki said, “I think she’s been very polarizing, very invigorating to both sides of the political spectrum.” She added, “There is a hunger for women in leadership positions I think that’s across the political spectrum with [Hillary] Clinton and Palin.”

Nozaki has been registering voters at the library in Fairfax City and she said the response last weekend was enormous. She’s never had a weekend like that, she said. October 6 is the deadline for registering to vote in Virginia. According to the Virginia Board of Elections, upwards of 283 thousand people have registered to vote since the first of the year and counties that traditionally vote Democratic have been registering more voters than traditionally Republican counties. Also, according to the Board of Elections, 62 percent of the new voters are under the age of 35. The Obama people believe that because they tend to attract younger voters, a Democratic presidential candidate has the best chance of taking Virginia since Lyndon Johnson won the state in l964.

When I asked Grace Nozaki if Obama could win Virginia she said, “Absolutely. Are we going to be all the women who were enthused about Palin at Van Dyk Park? No. But we’ll get enough.”