Republicans rally around McCain VP pick Palin

The McCain campaign released a copy of Palin's Republican voter registration card to rebut a report in The New York Times that Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party for two years in the 1990s. The group has sought a vote on whether the state should secede from the United States.

"The allegations that Gov. Palin was a member of (the) Alaska Independence Party are false. She's never been a member of the Alaska Independence Party," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

When Palin was announced on Friday, Republicans welcomed her entry into the presidential race against Obama and Joe Biden in the November 4 election as bringing a burst of energy to the McCain campaign.

They like her anti-abortion, pro-guns stances and her history of government reform in Alaska in her two years as governor.

There was every indication McCain and other Republicans would stand by only the second woman ever picked as a major party's vice presidential nominee, despite the hubbub.

"He absolutely keeps her," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "If he drops her, the election is over. There's zero chance that he'll drop her."

Bush was the headliner among Tuesday's speakers, who also included former Sen. Fred Thompson, who lost to McCain in the Republican primaries, and close McCain ally Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said the timing of Palin's speech was not yet set. He would not comment on whether she would use it to address any of the controversies surrounding her.

But her remarks will be "the most important speech the nominee will give in the course of the election" because of the large television audience, he said.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Richard Cowan and Tim Ryan; editing by Patricia Zengerle)