ANCHORAGE -- A couple of hours after Gov. Sarah Palin returned to the Outside, as Alaskans call the Lower 48, her local critics swarmed an Anchorage intersection to correct the widespread impression that the whole of the Last Frontier endorses her candidacy.
The midday protest outside a city library drew a crowd in the high hundreds -- perhaps surging past a thousand -- from the city's relatively liberal environs, who seemed very happy to see one another and be reminded that they are not alone.
"The whole thing grew out of frustration," said Charla Sterne, one of the organizers, who like several people at the rally declined to say where they worked (several said they were state employees and feared retribution).
"Last week this was just ten women sitting around talking about this perception that all of Alaska supports Sarah Palin. We apparently hit a nerve and started a movement," Sterne said.
A sense of festival obtained. There was a woman in a polar bear suit representing "Polar Bear Moms Say: No Palin." Drivers on 36th Avenue saw a little girl waving a sign "Don't Ban My Books."
Maia Nolan, 29, wore a sticker reading, "My Mom for V.P."
"My mom is from Alaska. She's a working mother. She's good looking," said Nolan. "So she seems to be qualified to be vice president."
There were also a few score Palin supporters in the mix, most of them alerted to the event by a conservative talk show host.
Eddie Burke of KBYR-AM showed up in person, but while there was no evident friction between the two camps, cheerful chants of "O-bam-ah" effectively drowned out whatever he was saying to the cameras in the center of a mini-media scrum.
The din did not prevent reading the signs, pro and against:
Bush In A Skirt
Palin: She Be Failin'
I Love My Alaska Girl
Jesus Was a Community Organizer
We Luv Our Lady Guv
Palin: Thanks But No Thanks
Smearing Alaska's Good Name One Scandal @ a Time
Candidate To Nowhere
Rape Kits Should Be Free
Voted For Her Once: Never Again!
Community Organizers are the Real Patriots
Barbies for War
I Shall Not Be Pandered To
Give Palin Your Vote AND Your Draft Age Child
Sarah Palin: So Far Right She's Wrong
Sarah Palin Is My Hero
Alaska Is Not Frisco
Gun Rights
Coat Hangers for McCain
Sarah Palin, Undoing 150 Years of American Feminism
Hockey Mama for Obama (on a hockey stick)