US Election: Swing State Crowds Turn Out for Palin - and Catch a Glimpse of Mccain

John McCain, as a solo act, was never going to be a star in his own right. But for a few minutes today amid thousands of cheering supporters he could feel like one - if he only ignored the chanting: Sarah, Sarah.

That's the sting of reflected glory. For McCain that is the price for choosing a running mate in Sarah Palin, the hockey mum turned Alaska governor who has replicated among Republicans the kind of excitement Democratic activists had for Barack Obama.

But it also makes McCain seem strangely like a supporting player at his own presidential campaign. Today's crowds dutifully wore their McCain buttons and praised the candidate's war record in Vietnam and long years in the Senate, but if not for Palin's appearance on the Republican ticket, would they have made it to the rally today?

Probably not, some said. A number said they may not have even bothered to go out to vote for McCain next November if he had not chosen Palin was his running mate.

"She definitely for me makes it a slam dunk," said Brian Sullivan, a photographer. "He was already my pick anyway, but this makes it a slam dunk."

Organizers said today's rally in Fairfax, a suburb of Washington, DC, was the biggest since McCain and Palin took to the road together, energizing hardcore supporters, and boosting the Republican's popularity among white women.

The turnout was almost overwhelmingly white, but it was also younger than most Republican events, with young families, and parents bringing school-age children.

Some estimates put the crowd at above 15,000, or about twice the population of Palin's hometown in Wasilla, Alaska.

It is also the last - at least for a couple of days. Palin was headed home to Alaska today.In her 10 days on the national stage, Palin has deviated little from her wildly popular - among Republicans anyway - convention speech, delivering an abbreviated and tamer version in rallies in Missouri, Pennsylania and today Virginia.

Barack Obama is hoping to turn the once reliably Republican state to the Democrats this year, and is counting heavily on independent voters in northern suburbs, such as Fairfax.

On stage today, flanked by McCain and her husband, Todd, Palin wore her now-trademark severe dark suit and updo. Cindy McCain, in parrot green and pearls, stood a few steps behind the trio.

On this occasion, Palin dispensed with her cosy preamble about being a hockey mum, and raising five children, and went straight into a recital of her cost-cutting measures as governor of Alaska and extolling McCain's stand on Iraq.

"I put the state's check book on line for all the world to see," she said. "That state luxury jet - that was little over the top - so I put it on eBay."

Then she told how she blocked a wasteful bridge project. "I told Congress, 'thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere'."Since Palin burst on the national scene, the Republicans have been forced to admit that the plane did not actually sell on eBay. Campaign aides also admit that Palin was originally for the bridge, before opposing it.

But those details didn't matter to the crowds, who saw Palin as the most exciting force in presidential politics for years. For committed Republicans, she was the binding factor convincing them to vote for a candidate who had somehow never been an entirely comfortable fit with his party base.

"I liked McCain, but I was a little wishy-washy," said Michelle Ferry, an army wife and realtor with a newborn daughter. "I might not have even voted before Sarah."

"She's fantastic," said Cathy Sweetser, who works at a local bank. "She brought to the campaign that change is not just an ivory tower. She has brought the youth, the female factor, the younger generation. She has brought most importantly to me, a lot of women who were sitting on the fence."

Before Sarah Palin arrived on the ticket, even the most loyal Republicans had had doubts about McCain, serious doubts.McCain - on his own - was too old to be president. He was not a true conservative. He was "too Washington," a prisoner of his two decades in the Senate in an election when voters seem to want to turn the clock back to Year Zero. And he was a little dull.

In the days since the convention, McCain, too, appears to be feeding off the excitement off the crowd. He is more animated on the stump in recent days, and the campaign more confrontational in trying to claim the mantle of change from Obama.

"Our opponent is an agent of change. He has changed his position on just about every issue," said Fred Thompson, the Law and Order actor and one-time presidential candidate, now taking second billing to the McCain-Palin double act.

The Republicans are also aggressively courting supporters of Hillary Clinton who have yet to warm to Obama. Opinion polls suggest that the effort - plus Palin's selection - have helped McCain win over white women voters.

The campaign pressed that home today, with a line-up of speakers that included two women who had once counted themselves as Democrats, but were now with McCain. "I might not agree with Senator McCain and Governor Palin on all the issues, but I don't agree with any candidate all the time," said Lynette Long, a former Clinton supporter, who said women had been treated shabbily by the Democrats.

The appeal to Clinton supporters is unlikely to go over well with committed Republicans. A number of women in the crowd were hostile to Clinton. But others say they see the same steely intelligence in Palin as they did in Clinton.

"I voted for Hillary," said Maria Juliano, a fashion consultant. "I see the same intelligence and guts I saw in her in Palin."

She added: "She can hold her own against any man and all the politicians - just like Hillary."