Elon, North Carolina
Six thousand tickets were grabbed up in three hours for Sarah Palin's speech here at the baseball field of Elon University. An even larger crowd--9,000 inside, 3,000 outside--showed up across the state in Greenville a few days earlier. But impressive attendance isn't the half of it. What's extraordinary is the effect Palin has on crowds. "When she hits the stage audiences erupt and they don't calm down," says Republican senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who appeared with Palin here and in Greenville. "I've been with Bush, Clinton, 41--and I've never seen anything like this."

Her speech--a standard stump speech extolling John McCain and zinging Barack Obama--hardly matters. People not only want to see her, Burr says, "they want to touch her. Their perception is she's one of them. It has nothing to do with ideology. It's not about Christian conservatives. It goes far beyond all that."

Whatever else the 2008 presidential campaign may produce, it has created a new Republican star--Palin--a political natural who's at ease in front of crowds and whose cheerfulness, self-confidence, and optimism haven't slackened in the face of unusually harsh--and often highly personal-- attacks by Democrats and the mainstream media.

Palin can't explain the exuberant crowds or is too modest to try. She "didn't know what to expect" once she began campaigning as McCain's vice presidential running mate, she told me last week. The enthusiasm is "encouraging and energizing," she says, and "the most pleasant surprise has been independents and Democrats who've shown such great enthusiasm."

Palin's appeal is not that hard to define. She's neither outspoken nor eloquent. And the conservatism she espouses is fairly conventional. It's who she is--her story, her biography--that has stirred fascination and enables her to connect with voters. She's a mother of five, a serious Christian, a tough-minded governor of Alaska, a fearless slayer of (male) political bigwigs, a beauty queen, a hunter. Palin, as best I can describe it, exudes a kind of middle-class magnetism. It's subdued but nonetheless very powerful.

Republicans, even some McCain advisers, have yet to realize the enormous asset they have in Palin: She's the party's most crowd-pleasing and exciting figure since Ronald Reagan. Okay, she's not a "new Reagan." That role will remain eternally unfilled. Palin lacks Reagan's decades of political involvement, his knowledge, and especially his grounding in conservative thought.

Her conservatism is more instinctive. Her Republican heroes, besides McCain, come to a grand total of two, Reagan and Lincoln. And for now, she's a neophyte in national politics, having been picked by McCain less than two months ago.

But Palin does have a few of Reagan's skills. Reagan used to say that having been an actor often came in handy in politics. Palin tosses off corny lines like "Say it ain't so, Joe," the one she ad-libbed in her debate with Joe Biden. She knows how to speed to the end of a sentence when a burst of applause is coming. She's adept at accentuating a point--for instance, the "news flash" for the media in her convention speech. She can act. And of course she winks.