McCain, Palin bring message to Democratic stronghold N.Va.

FAIRFAX

Amid shouts of "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!," Republicans welcomed their suddenly hot national ticket to Virginia on Wednesday and cheered as presidential hopeful John McCain promised to battle "earmarkers" and old boy cronies across the Potomac.

A crowd the local fire marshal estimated at 15,000 but McCain's campaign said was at least 23,000 roared its approval as McCain and running mate Sarah Palin grabbed at the reformer's mantle claimed by Democrat Barack Obama.

"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers," Palin said in one of the day's most applauded lines. "And then there are others, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

McCain and Palin delivered largely recycled versions of speeches they gave last week to accept the party's nomination, with McCain adding some reformist rhetoric about the Bush administration's decision on Sunday to rescue trouble mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

"We can't allow this to turn into a bailout of Wall Street speculators and irresponsible executives," he said to applause. "The CEOs that led us into this mess are walking away with over $20 million, and we're not going to let that happen. They deserve nothing. They should be paying it back."

Jammed into a small park a few miles from the nation's capital, much of the throng clearly came to see Palin, the Alaska governor plucked from obscurity just two weeks ago to join the ticket.

Hundreds held their cell-phone cameras aloft as she walked onstage. They brandished signs reading "Palin Power" and "Hockey Mom." A few hoisted elephant dolls fitted with makeshift wigs showing off Palin's upswept hairstyle.

They thundered their approval when a preliminary speaker, one-time Hillary Clinton supporter Lynette Long of Maryland, jumped into the campaign's spat of the moment: comments by Obama on Tuesday that Republicans interpreted as liken ing Palin to a pig.

"Mr. Obama, calling girls names is something fifth-grade boys do, and I don't want a fifth-grader running my country," Long said.

While Democrats termed the controversy contrived and said McCain regularly uses Obama's "lipstick on a pig" line to disparage Democratic policies, some Republicans in the crowd said Obama intended it as a personal attack on Palin.

"What they said yesterday about the pig wearing lipstick... that was horrible, horrible," said Janet Alexander of Alexandria, a retired homemaker.

"I know it was directed at her."

The roaring reception for Palin provided plenty of support for party leaders' claims that her candidacy has energized GOP voters and is helping the party reach out to independents and Democrats, particularly women.

"It's exciting that a woman who was in the PTA seven years ago, all of a sudden she's running for vice president," said Pat Rehill, a real estate agent from Burke who attended Wednesday's rally.

Palin "just cinched it for me," said Tanya Head of Chantilly, a stay-at-home mom who called herself a staunch Republican but said she had been worried about McCain's prospects in increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia.

"We have a very good fighting chance now.... It was neck and neck. Now I believe we can really pull it off," she said.

Others in the crowd said they were inspired by Palin's personal story, her balancing of the roles of wife, mother of five children and governor.

"Sarah inspires me," said Peggy Hardy of Clifton, who retired last year after a career at the Navy Federal Credit Union. "It seems like she can do everything."

Hardy dismissed suggestions that with only two years in the governor's office and a term as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town with less than 10,000 residents, Palin is unprepared to be within a heartbeat of the presidency.

"You have five kids, you're experienced," she said. With a big family like Palin's, "you know a little bit about everything."

With Virginia now clearly a battleground state - "We must win it," McCain declared at the outset of Wednesday's speech - Fairfax, the state's largest locality, figures to be critical to both candidates.

Once reliably Republican, the county has become a Democratic stronghold. U.S. Sen. Jim Webb carried the county with 59 percent of the vote in 2006 and Gov. Tim Kaine got 60 percent in 2005.

Republicans clearly hope that Palin will connect with the tens of thousands of working mothers in Fairfax and across Northern Virginia.

"The hockey mom, professional woman/homemaker is a big part of the Democratic vote in Fairfax," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. To carry Virginia in November, he said, McCain probably needs only to break even among that group.

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com