Ten thousand die-hard Virginia Republicans flocked to the Richmond International Raceway, seeking inspiration from Sarah Palin, as a state that last voted for a Democratic president in 1964 slides Barack Obama's way.

At the racetrack, a stockcar-racing temple of America's white working class, were men and women, grandmothers and children, military veterans, gun-lovers and abortion rights activists — everyone but blacks and Hispanics.

They came wearing their hearts on their sleeves and on their shirts, hats and trucks. “Don't let the lipstick fool ya,” proclaim the badges and bumper stickers. “I'm voting for the Chick”, “Sarah — Girl Power”, “Unborn babies for Sarah Palin”.

Some had driven for two hours. They queued for an hour for security and stood for another two hours in the hot sun awaiting the rally.

They did not rave about John McCain but they adore the Governor of Alaska. They love her earthiness, her ordinariness, that she is just like them.

“She's probably one of the only politician who knows how to go to a grocery store and budget,” Timothy Taylor, 25, an ex-Marine, said. “She's my first political hero since Ronald Reagan,” declared Raymond Pace, 67, a former estate agent.

None quaked at the thought of her in the Oval Office. She has run a state, they said. Led a National Guard. She has more executive experience than Mr Obama and Joe Biden, who have been only senators (like Mr McCain).

Their answers were uniform because they all followed the same right-wing radio chat-show hosts and conservative bloggers. The “liberal media elite” is enemy number two here. Only Mr Obama is detested more.

“Obama and Biden will take this country far too far to the left. They'll take away the freedoms I've spent 40 years defending,” said Dwayne Schnakenberg, 40, a Navy veteran.

Others considered Mr Obama to be a subversive, terrorist- sympathising, America-hating radical and covert Muslim. They cited his links to the former Weathermen militant Bill Ayers, and to Jeremiah Wright, his fiery former minister. Some claimed that he supported sharia in Kenya and consorted with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

“What turned me off was the way he wouldn't put his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance or wear a flag pin. I don't know how you can call yourself an American if you don't do that,” Heather Zimerman, 39, a substitute teacher, said.

“He's smart, articulate and beguiling but his supporters — his inner circle— are radicals who want revolution,” Billy Benton, 55, an estate agent, said. “I don't know what he was doing in Indonesia all those years — hanging around with Muslim terrorists?” Madeleine Willis, 60, a retired factory worker, asked.

Mr Taylor complained about the trip to Europe that Mr Obama took in July: “I don't think the president of the US should go around saying, 'I'm a citizen of the world'.” One beefy man wore a T-shirt proclaiming: “The difference between Obama and Osama is just a little B.S.”

The warm-up acts began with a Republican official telling the crowd that the liberal elite wanted it to give up. “No!” it roared back. A minister thanked God for Mr McCain and Mrs Palin, who were “exactly the leaders we need in troubled times like these”.

Finally the star arrived, accompanied by Hank Williams Jr, who sang a folksy song comparing Mrs Palin to a “momma bear in Idaho ... If you mess with her cubs she's going to take off her gloves”.

The throng wanted red meat. Mrs Palin pressed the right buttons but did not quite provide. She likened the race to a recent stockcar classic where the lead kept changing.

She slammed Wall Street greed, lobbyists, the Washington elite. She issued pain-free prescriptions for restoring prosperity (mostly involving tax cuts), and lots of what her fans would hail as homespun truths and critics would call platitudes (“America is not something to apologise for. America is not a problem. It's the solution”).

She led chants of “USA, USA” and “Drill, baby, drill”, slipped in the odd “doggone it”, invited veterans to raise their hands so “we can honour these guys”. She invoked Ronald Reagan, her son's service in Iraq and her Down's syndrome baby.

The crowds booed every mention of Mr Obama.

She read from an Autocue however, her timing and pitch were a fraction off and there were no truly incendiary lines, no repeat references to Mr Obama “palling around with terrorists” or being “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America”. The best she managed was a dig at his war speeches — “Just once I'd love to hear Barack Obama say ‘I want America to win'.”

In turn attacked, unleashed and accused of incitement, the pitbull has been muzzled again.

At one point she thought that a distant section of the crowd who chanted “louder” were protesters. It was an apt mistake for a confused campaign and its bewildered supporters.

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