The introduction of Palin has loosened up McCain on the stump and banished the staid image of the dignified elder statesman. He is a feistier candidate with the Alaska Governor by his side. With his blue shirt sleeves rolled up, he punches out his lines with gusto, railing against the “old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd,” stabbing the air with his Sharpie marker and thumping the lectern with his fist.

Aides acknowledge that Palin’s presence has turned McCain into a sharper campaigner, and that is perhaps why she abandoned her plans to return to Alaska this weekend, to accompany him for two more days.

McCain, who once struggled to match the ability of his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to draw large crowds, is now being flocked by throngs of supporters. On the GOP ticket’s first post-convention stop, supporters jammed the streets of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. In Sterling Heights, Michigan, there were more than 7,000 people chanting — not McCain’s name, but “Sa-rah! Sa-rah!” Much the same happened later in Albuquerque.

Dustin Spilsbury, whose 3-year-old daughter was hoisted on his shoulders, summed up his Sarah Palin fever.“I’m ready for her for president — I wish it was switched,” said the 30-year-old auto glass technician who lives with his wife, Shannon, and their two children in nearby Rio Rancho, New Mexico “We love her. I just wasn’t going to vote at all, (but) she sold us both.” “She does more things than we do — the hunting and the fishing, the outdoors stuff, the kids and the bills. She understands us,” he said.

Nearby, Kim Barnard, a pastor and 36-year-old mother of three, said choosing Palin “was the best thing [McCain] ever could have done.” “We know a lot of people who were not going to vote for McCain because he’s old,” Barnard said. “She brings a fresh breath to the Republican Party; she just kind of energized the entire campaign.”

Mark Salter, McCain’s longtime aide, said the McCain was “pumped” by the public reaction to Palin. “He loves campaigning with her.” The duo, who scarcely met before becoming a team, have begun forging a friendship helped by their irreverent senses of humor, aides say. In this honeymoon phase, voters admit they know little about Palin’s positions and background. But a sign in Albuquerque may have summed it up for Republican stalwarts: “Sarah — you had us at hello.”

McCain takes 4-point lead over Obama

John McCain heads into the final stretch of the US presidential campaign with a 4-point lead over Barack Obama, a USA Today/Gallup poll released on Sunday showed. The lead was McCain’s biggest since January and a turnaround from a poll taken before the Republican Party convention, when he trailed Obama by 7 points. USA Today said McCain got a boost from the convention and selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.