From Los Angeles Times, an article about the energized John McCain:
He is a feistier candidate with Palin at 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. Instead, she will accompany him for two more days than planned this week.
Cognizant of the splash their rallies have made on television, the campaign scrapped plans for a visit to a laboratory in Columbia, Mo., today, choosing instead to rally in Lee’s Summit, Mo.
And 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, Wis. And in Sterling Heights, Mich., there were more than 7,000 people chanting — not McCain’s name, but "Sa-rah! Sa-rah!"
Much the same happened later that night in Albuquerque, where a crowd of 6,000 appeared. Dustin Spilsbury, whose 3-year-old daughter was hoisted on his shoulders, summed up his Sarah Palin fever as he watched her work the rope line.
"I’m ready for her for president — I wish it was switched," said Spilsbury, a 30-year-old auto glass technician who lives with his wife, Shannon, and their two children in nearby Rio Rancho, N.M. "We love her. I just wasn’t going to vote at all, [but] she sold us both."
