DaytonDailyNews.com

LAKEWOOD — Chants of "we will win" greeted Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as she made the McCain-Palin ticket's final campaign appearance in the battle for Ohio's 20 electoral votes.

This Cleveland suburb is in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County — President Bush got just 33 percent of the vote there in 2004 — but Palin, the Alaska governor, had enthusiastic fans among the more than 1,000 supporters who turned out for the morning rally on Monday, Nov. 3.

"I love Gov. Palin. She's a good conservative woman. She's just like me," said Brianne Gibson, 23. She and her husband Ryan, 26, got up at 4 a.m. to get to Lakewood Park with their twins, Ryan and Alli, who turn 3 on Friday.

Alice Myhal, 53, a small-business owner from Lakewood, applauded the McCain-Palin ticket's anti-abortion stance.

"You can't stand for anything else if you don't stand for life itself," said Myhal.

Palin, after an introduction by U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, introduced her husband Todd as Alaska's "first dude" and then banged away at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who drew a crowd estimated at 80,000 to a downtown Cleveland rally on Sunday, Nov. 2.

"They can fill a stadium but they cannot keep our country safe," said Palin.

Obama, she said, has an "ideological commitment to higher taxes."

"It's like he just can't help himself," Palin said. She also was scheduled to campaign in Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada in a final push for votes before today's election.

McCain, she said, is the only candidate who has the "courage and experience and the wisdom to get this economy back on track."

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a prepared statement that Obama would provide tax relief for 95 percent of workers and their families while McCain hasn't proposed "a single major thing he'd do differently than George Bush when it comes to the economy."

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.