Palin leads rally at Missouri Capitol

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a final-day campaign appeal Monday to Missouri's conservative center by tapping into fears of tax increases and terrorist attacks if Democrat Barack Obama were to win the presidency.

The rally on the steps of the state Capitol marked Palin's third trip in 10 days to Missouri, where she and Republican presidential candidate John McCain are locked in a close battle with the Democratic ticket of Obama and Joe Biden.

With polls showing McCain and Obama about even in Missouri, both campaigns have been hitting traditionally Republican areas heading into today's elections. Obama campaigned before thousands Saturday night in the Republican stronghold of Springfield, and Biden appeared shortly before Palin on Monday in the Kansas City suburb of Lee's Summit.

Palin played up her rural connections in a mid-Missouri region that trends Republican. She strode down the Capitol steps in blue jeans, clapped in the background to country music singer Hank Williams Jr. and exited as "Redneck Woman" played over loudspeakers dangling from cranes.

"Barack Obama is for bigger government and for higher taxes," Palin said to the boos of a crowd estimated at more 17,000 by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The Missouri Republican Party, citing the Secret Service, estimated the crowd at 20,000.

Missouri has a reputation as a low-tax state, and its Capitol is the site of an annual "support the troops" rally that regularly dwarfs any anti-war protests. Palin highlighted McCain's military service and prisoner-of-war distinction while suggesting he was more prepared than Obama to handle wars.

"The rousing speeches of our opponent can fill a stadium but they cannot keep our country safe," Palin said. "And for a season, a man may inspire with his words, but it's been for a lifetime that John McCain has inspired with his trustworthy and heroic deeds."

McCain has not come to Missouri since a three-city swing on Oct. 20. Instead, Palin has campaigned in Cape Girardeau, Springfield and now Jefferson City -- areas where about two-thirds of the vote went for Republican President Bush four years ago. Her selection by McCain has helped firm up support among some.

"I'm a conservative, and Palin's the closest we've got in the race that reflects that," said Baptist pastor Mark Phillips, 50, of Jefferson City.

Also among those in the crowd Monday was Julie Rungert, 46, a medical officer manager whose husband is a retired security guard. The couple lost their Jefferson City home to foreclosure last year, partly because of rising energy bills, she said. But Rungert listed social issues, namely opposition to abortion and gay marriage, as an equal or greater reason for her support of McCain and Palin.

Palin spoke beneath of a large U.S. flag draped between the Capitol's columns and a sign spelling out "V-O-T-E."

Missouri has voted for the winning presidential candidate every time but once in the past century, when it picked Adlai Stevenson instead of President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

"If we win in Missouri, then McCain-Palin will win the nation," U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., told the crowd before Palin appeared. "We have never been more important in the vote for president than this year."

Decked in a Kansas City Chiefs jersey and cowboy hat, Williams led the national anthem then sang a twist of his trademark song "Family Tradition," dropping the normal references to drinking and smoking. Instead, Williams sang of a "McCain-Palin Tradition."

"John is his own man. Sarah fixed Alaska's bad condition. They're gonna get it right. We're gonna see the light with the McCain-Palin tradition," Williams sang.