All photography by Brian Frank

If you were at the Home Depot tennis stadium in Carson, California, on Saturday afternoon, you might have gotten the impression that the Republicans had managed to recruit their own rock star for the 2008 election. The McCain campaign had heretofore lacked the sort of mosh-pit adoration that Barack Obama seemed to inspire even before he announced his bid for the presidency. But vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, over “pressed” by the media and mocked by pundits and comedians alike for her down-home demeanor (which appeals to some and repulses others) and supposed lack of experience, drew an overflow crowd at a venue that normally holds 8,000 people.

With campaign stickers referring to her as “Sarah-cuda” and “Sarah Pit Bull,” Palin’s appeal to conservative voters seemed to lie in her aggressiveness, but she also tapped into Republican nostalgia for the Ronald Reagan era. And, of course, she’s got the look. One young man—bolstered by his friend’s whisper, “She’s hot man!”—took advantage of a moment’s quiet before Palin started speaking to yell through a rolled-up magazine, “Marry me, Sarah Palin!”

Throughout the speech, Palin couldn’t go more than a few lines before the crowd erupted with cheers or booing (when she mentioned the enemy camp). And she was nearly assaulted by the crowd when all was said and done, smiling like a media darling and signing her autograph for as many people as she could before she had to leave the stadium. People were pressed so tightly together, one woman had to climb atop a man’s shoulders to get a clear shot.

But let’s back up. It was still just a stump speech, and she used it to continue the momentum she had gained from the debate with Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, which followed an interview with Katie Couric that many said she handled poorly.

Then, like a good running mate, Palin went on the attack.

Palin apologized for not responding immediately when Couric asked about what she reads, saying she was simply taken aback. “Let’s start talking about the issues,” she said, adding with more than a touch of irony that apparently there are a lot of people interested in what she reads.

“Well, I was reading today a copy of the New York Times,” she told the crowd. They booed, and one man in the audience even shouted, “Liberal press!” It wasn’t the last time during the brief speech that she or the crowd would criticize the media.

With that as her opening, she proceeded to talk about an article that ran in Saturday’s edition that she said connected Obama to “domestic terrorist” William Ayers, who, according to the article, in the 1960s helped launch “a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol” by the Weathermen.

What she failed to mention was that the same article concluded the ties between the two men were loose at best, and that Obama was only eight at the time Ayers helped found the Weathermen.

Clearly she has latched onto her role as attack dog. Palin has carried out a strategy in her stump speeches that is light on detail, heavy on offense, and Saturday was no different. Without offering many, if any, clear steps toward achieving her goals, she appealed broadly to Reagan conservatives by talking tax cuts, love of country, support for veterans, and the need to win the war in Iraq.

“Why can’t Obama say just once that he wants America to win?” she said.

Between attacks, Palin assumed a seemingly humble demeanor, which only seemed to rile up the crowd more. When she pushed for energy independence (which is bipartisan territory), decrying the increasingly high cost of living while paychecks decrease and saying it “doesn’t make sense with the resources God blessed this country with,” the crowd began chanting, “Drill, baby, drill!” She seemed to be blushing when she said, “You guys are great!”

When it started to sprinkle and no one budged (umbrellas were not allowed), she said, “I thought when the raindrops started, you guys would just go.”

The crowd: “No!”

But Palin was as aggressive in her appeals to voters as she was meek. She opened the speech with a clear nod to her women supporters. Starting her intro off with more comments about “hockey moms,” she said she read a quote on her Starbucks mocha cup that morning by Madeleine Albright (boos): “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”

As though giving herself an out, she reiterated that it was Albright who spoke the words, but the crowd cheered. She sighed and thanked everyone. “I didn’t know how well that was going to be received,” she said.

Maybe it would be hard to cast her as rock star when she keeps wavering between country mom and pit bull, but regardless, the air almost crackled in Carson. Some said they felt more excited about this race than they had since Ronald Reagan was running for president. So despite polls showing a dip in support for the McCain camp after she came aboard, Palin seemed, from on the ground at least, to inject new life into the Republican race.

“Loved it!” said Angela Napier, a first-time voter who attended with her mother, Jill. Walking back to their car after the event, Napier said she liked Palin because “she’s more conservative compared to John McCain.”

Another group said Palin was “way beyond a rock star” and that “she’s like us.” Christina Tunger, Heather Bryden and Tony Browning volunteer at a voter registration booth in Santa Barbara and said they often get heckled by liberal voters. Sometimes, they said, people will stop by to re-register as a Republican, whispering as though afraid of being found out, a reminder perhaps of how unlikely it may be for the McCain-Palin ticket to win in California. But still, they were excited.

“She’s what’s inspiring me, not McCain,” Tunger said. “I wouldn’t have voted for Obama, but when (Palin) came on the ticket I got excited.”

“If McCain loses, you have not seen the last of Sarah Palin,” Browning said.

It’s possible, after all, that Palin could recover from a loss and apply her experience on the campaign trail to a future bid for the presidency. It’s a scenario that many people in Carson that day might cheer for.

Obama supporters protest outside the front gate of the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

Obama supporters picket outside the stadium.

One protester shouts to the people waiting to get in, “How can you let your children grow up Republican?”

Actor Jon Voight speaks to a crowd of McCain-Palin supporters, celebrating Sarah Palin’s motherly virtues by comparing her to his own mom, whom he described as a protective “mother wolf.”

A McCain-Palin volunteer starts a wave, to be followed shortly by a “God Bless America!” sparked by a few people on the floor at the event.

Sarah Palin reaches out to sign another autograph for one of her adoring fans.

Photography by Brian Frank