CLEARWATER, Florida (Reuters) - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told Florida’s voters on Monday to expect “rough” campaigning as she seeks to halt a slide in opinion polls in a state that could make or break Sen. John McCain’s White House bid.

Strategists say the Alaska governor must rally Republican loyalists into a get-out-the-vote offensive in a two-day swing over more than 800 miles in the state that George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004 but where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has taken the lead.

“There is a feeling now that we are beginning to see among Republicans that McCain can’t win,” said David Johnson, a Republican strategist and pollster who worked on Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign.

“A lot of the base is dissatisfied with Sen. McCain,” he said of party activists who helped Bush win in 2000 and 2004.

Winning Florida’s 27 electoral votes is vital to McCain’s chances of capturing the 270 needed to win the November 4 presidential election.

With the pressure on, Palin is targeting Obama’s judgment and character in speeches that include the unsubstantiated charge that the Illinois senator has close ties to Bill Ayers, a former member of the 1960s-era militant Weather Underground

The group was involved in bombings in the 1960s, when Obama was 8 years old. Obama met him in the 1990s when first starting his political career in Chicago and the two served on a board together. Obama has said he knows Ayers only slightly and has denounced his actions with the Weather Underground.

“I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America,” Palin said of Obama at a rally of 5,000 supporters in Florida’s heavily Republican city of Clearwater.

Critics say that line is especially pointed because of its potential subtext. Obama would be the first black president and his background, including part of a childhood spent in Indonesia, is different from that of most Americans.

Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin speaks during the vice presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri October 2, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Young

Palin seemed to acknowledge that the race was entering a new, harsher phase. “You are going to have to hang onto your hats because from now until election day it may get kind of rough,” the 44-year-old self-described “hockey mom” said.

Jamie Miller, a former regional political director of the state’s Republican Party, said Florida is a “must-win” state for McCain. “Florida represents such as diverse population that when Florida starts going down, you start losing some of these other swing states, and then the path gets really hard.”

‘MAKE ME WANT TO CRY’

Palin was feted like a rock star by the crowd of Republican loyalists, many of whom wore the red, white and blue colors of the American flag and held placards reading “Palin Power,” “Go Sarah” and “Florida 4 Sarah.”

“Man, some of your signs just make me want to cry. Thank you so much,” Palin said.

Jacqueline Brown, a Democrat and evangelical Christian who said she was in her 50s, likened Palin’s rally to watching rock’n’roll legend Elvis Presley. “I saw Elvis and I thought I was going to die. Sarah is next to seeing Elvis,” she said.

But doubts lingered for 55-year-old Allie McDonnell. “She should say more about why McCain has lobbyists on his campaign. And I’m also afraid that he’ll keep the war going. A lot of our boys and brothers have died.”

Four new polls last week gave Obama, who had trailed in Florida for weeks, an edge in the Sunshine State.

The change in part reflects growing concern over the deepening economic crisis, which plays to Obama’s perceived strengths and has seen him gain in national opinion polls.

Palin plans to visit many of the same areas where Bush in 2004 solidified his support, such as north and southwest Florida. In addition to Clearwater, she held a rally in Fort Myers on Monday. On Tuesday, she heads to Jacksonville and then cuts across the northwestern Panhandle for an event in Pensacola.

“The Palin visit is an indicator of where McCain needs to do well. He needs to do well in the Tampa Bay region. He needs to do well in the Panhandle region and he needs to do well in southwest Florida,” said Miller.

“And he needs to try and limit losses probably from the Orlando area down to Miami,” he added.