CARSON CITY, NEV. — Seeking to win this swing state's five electoral votes, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin made her first solo campaign stop in the lower 48 states Saturday, promising ethics reform, lower taxes and energy self-sufficiency.
Palin, greeted by chants of "Sarah, Sarah," spoke to about 3,500 people for about 20 minutes. She was interrupted frequently by cheers and applause. And she led the audience in the now-familiar refrain: "Drill, baby, drill."
"In a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to expand opportunity for new energy development," the Alaska governor said, promising she and John McCain would push to "drill now to make this nation energy-self-sufficient."
Palin did not mention Barack Obama or Joe Biden, a departure from her early days on the trail when she harshly criticized the Democratic presidential ticket.
But she did take a veiled swipe at Michelle Obama, saying that John McCain, "like you and like me, is always proud to be an American." (In February, Michelle Obama controversially said that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.")
After her speech, Palin and her husband, Todd -- whom she called him the "first dude" and who she noted is a United Steelworkers union member -- spent more than half an hour signing autographs and shaking hands before heading to two more swing states, Colorado and Ohio.
"I love her," said Juliene Allman, who manages a dental office in Reno. "She is an all-American woman. She is like all of us."
It might seem odd that Palin made Nevada's capital city her first solo stop outside of Alaska, but Carson City is in a battleground region in a battleground state. Obama is to visit this week.
The state is narrowly divided. Bill Clinton carried it in 1992 and 1996. George W. Bush won it in 2000 and 2004, each time by about 21,500 more votes than his foes.
The visits underscore how close the outcome could be on Nov. 4.
"George Bush won our state because of rural Nevada, twice," Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said in a warm-up for Palin on Saturday, urging the crowd to "turn out like never before."
Thanks to a labor-backed voter registration effort, Democrats have expanded their ranks to 458,900, compared with 397,200 Republicans. Roughly a fifth of the state's voters, or about 150,000, are nonpartisan.
