Palin draws crowd of 60,000 in The Villages

Buzz up! THE VILLAGES -- Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told wildly cheering, flag-waving, chanting supporters that John McCain is "the only great man in this race" and promised Sunday he will fix the nation's economy if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

"He won't say this, so I'll say it for him," the Alaska governor said in an almost confidential tone at the close of her first Florida stump speech. "There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you. John McCain wore the uniform of his country for 22 years -- talk about tough."

The Villages, a vast, upscale planned community north of Orlando, has about 70,000 mostly adult residents -- many of them military retirees -- who vote reliably Republican in statewide races. Tens of thousands inched along roads into the picturesque town square of the complex, where they stood in sweltering heat for about four hours as local GOP officials and a country band revved up the crowd.

"Sa-Rah! Sa-Rah!" they chanted at every mention of her name, applauding loudly and waiving tiny American flags that were distributed -- along with free water bottles -- by local volunteers. The fire chief estimated the crowd at 60,000.

In a theme Palin would pound home, GOP Chairman Jim Greer Greer said Obama and his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, have records of voting for higher taxes and have said on the campaign trail that they would increase regulation of financial markets.

"John MCain and I are going to take our case for reform to every voter in every background and every party, or no party at all," said Palin. "We're going to Washington to shake things up."

She said "John McCain warned Congress that we needed to do something before these problems became a crisis," but that Washington -- including Obama and Biden -- did not act for months as financial giants teetered and toppled.

"Americans are caught in kind of a perfect storm between high taxes, high gas prices, greed on Wall Street and a shortage of courage in Washington," she said. "But we need new leadership in Washington -- we need serious reform on Wall Street."


Then she recalled that McCain took an early, unpopular stance in support of the Iraq troop surge, a policy shift now widely credited with stabilizing Iraq. "That's the kind of man I want as commander in chief," she shouted, as applause and whoops rose in the town square. "John McCain is the only great man in this race."