US: 'Security, abortion, gay marriage - these issues are why I like George Bush', a supporter of the President told Conor O'Clery in Michigan where he watched Mr Bush's campaign
He walked in wearing a casual shirt as if he had just been cutting brush and gave a cheery wave; the stadium exploded in shrieks and whistles and shouts of "Woof! Woof! Woof!"
George Bush is greeted like a rock star by his devotees in heartland America, where he is campaigning throughout August to counter the post-convention Kerry-Edwards momentum.
Before arriving at the Wendler Arena in Saginaw, Michigan, on Thursday evening, the crowd had already been whipped into a patriotic fervour by the Gatlin Brothers, Larry, Steve and Rudy from Texas, introduced as "musicians who have their thinking straight".
The country music group once began every performance with their hit, Houston, but now "we start every night with America the Beautiful in case we get complacent," said Larry Gatlin.
People around the world criticised America, he said, "but we're not the bad guys in this deal, we're the good guys!" He evoked boos by mentioning Michael Moore from nearby Flint, saying, "Now ain't he a dandy!"
Moore, he said, had asked Bill O'Reilly on television if he would send his son to Iraq, but American soldiers were volunteers. They didn't join up "to shoot brag at the PX".
Why, if his own son, 28- year-old Joshua Cash Gatlin, who is working for the Bush-Cheney campaign, decided to volunteer, he would drive him to the recruiting centre, pray with him and "if I could, I'd go with him".
George Bush had to wait several minutes, smiling and shrugging, before the noise abated in the three-quarter filled basketball stadium draped with his new campaign slogan, "Heart and Soul Moving America Forward".
"My opponents believe you can find the heart and soul of America in Hollywood," said the President. "I think you can find it right here in Saginaw."
(Earlier in the day the heart and soul of America had been in his other campaign stop, Columbus, Ohio).
Mr Bush went on to extol his record on jobs, schools, healthcare, the economy, taxes and energy, but it was the war on terror which raised the decibel level again and the waving of the 5,000 American flags handed out at the door.
"America and the world are safer," he repeated several times, saying that Afghanistan was now an ally; Pakistan was helping to round up terrorists; Saudi Arabia was taking the fight to al-Qaeda; Libya had abandoned nuclear weapons and Saddam Hussein had been toppled.
As always, the President linked the war on Saddam to 9/11.
"Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and trust a madman?" he cried.
"No!" shouted the fans.
"See, you can't talk sense to the terrorists."
"No!"
"You cannot negotiate with the terrorists."
"No!"
"We must engage the enemies around the world so we do not have to face them here at home."
"Yes! USA! USA!"
As for his opponent, he did not vote for body armour and other vital equipment for the troops, but said it was a complicated matter, said Mr Bush.
"But here's nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat." (Boo!).
Mr Bush also got cheers and foot-stamping when he vowed he stood for "institutions like marriage" and for "a culture of life in which every being counts", code for opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights.
This resonated with state trooper Jeffrey Devine who told me as he left afterwards with his family: "Security, abortion, gay marriages, those are the issues that interest me, that's why I like Bush."
Anti-abortion activists have arrived in this battleground state to energise the conservative vote in a culture war which enables pro-business Republicans to poll well in blue-collar towns like Saginaw, where unemployment is high but the Catholic population is socially conservative.
Led by a man driving a van with a California registration adorned with pictures of aborted foetuses, pro-life pickets armed with similar images took over the desolate main street of Flint on Thursday. They set up a notice warning drivers: "American atrocities displayed ahead".
"Republicans are trying to make abortion an issue in the election," John Nikola, the Lebanese-American lawyer who heads the Democratic Party in Flint, said in his downtown office, "but the Catholics here are more sophisticated than Bush thinks." The war was the number one issue in Flint, he said, followed by jobs.
Frustration was growing over Iraq casualties, but they couldn't get information from Washington about the number coming back missing limbs. "You try to find out," he said. "These are the tactics the Soviets used during the Afghanistan war".
Nikola remembered 250,000 in Flint working in General Motors, which now employed 60,000. People who once earned $30 an hour with benefits now got $5.50 an hour working behind a counter.
"How can you raise a family on $5.50 an hour?" he asked. "I have spoken to people who eat dog food, who worry about the price of dog food!" The battle for Michigan is intensifying in the run-up to the election.
This was Mr Bush's fifth visit inside a month. The Democrats are also sending in their big guns. John Kerry drew 30,000 in Grand Rapids last month. John Edwards will be in Flint next week.
General Wesley Clark was in Frankenmuth on Thursday, promising Hispanic veterans at the Bavarian Lodge that Kerry knew what to do in Iraq "by getting us out of there as quickly as it is possible to do so".
The former Democratic candidate also turned up in Saginaw to help rally Democrats against the war, telling them: "We were going after Saddam while al-Qaeda was coming after us, and that dog won't hunt."
As the Bush supporters streamed out of the arena, they encountered about 100 pro-Kerry protesters with anti-Bush placards. For a while they stood face to face, one side screaming "Bush! Bush!" the other, "Bush lies, soldiers die!"
"I'm a grandmother. I want jobs for my kids," said Carol Fiting, who helped organise the protest.
"This is not our war. We didn't ask for it." A man came over to say brusquely, "I'm a Democrat, but I have to vote Bush: I don't think John Kerry can protect this country."