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ELON — Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, emphasized the positive on the public part of her trip through the Triad on Thursday, maintaining the GOP campaign’s new posture that mutes attacks on the Democratic ticket delivered at rallies.

Following the lead Republican presidential candidate John McCain established at a rally in Wilmington on Monday, Palin knocked Democrat Barack Obama’s economic policies but did not bring up questions of character or patriotism during a rally at Elon University.

She used her 30 minutes to touch on policy topics, including energy and taxes, and assisting families with special needs, although none in much depth.

When she did mention Obama or his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, it was to contrast the campaigns’ policies.

“It’s not mean-spirited and it’s not negative campaigning when you call someone out on their record,” Palin said to cheers.

The emphasis is a change from a speech Palin delivered this month in Greenville. There, she said the election was about truthfulness and judgment, adding, “I can tell you John McCain has it and Barack Obama does not.”

At Elon, the closest she came was a reference to the controversy over voter registration efforts by the group ACORN.

“One ticket will never tolerate voter fraud, the other ticket won’t disavow a group that is committing voter fraud,” Palin said.

Whether Obama was tied to ACORN was brought up at the last presidential debate Wednesday night. And it has been a subject that McCain’s campaign staff has hammered away at on conference calls with reporters, claiming that the nonprofit has conspired with Obama to submit fraudulent voter registration. Obama denies the charge, saying his campaign does its own voter registration work.

Local surrogates for Obama decried the McCain campaign’s continued references to ACORN and Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground organizer. The group carried out bombings during the 1960s, and Ayers did jail time for his role before becoming an education professor and serving on a nonprofit board with Obama.

While Palin’s and McCain’s speeches have been positive, a new prerecorded call by the McCain campaign targets Obama over his connection to Ayers, saying that Obama “worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.”

State Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, called on McCain to shift gears.

“They won’t step up and talk issues,” Rand said. “The process would be improved so much if the McCain campaign would quiet all this negative stuff.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican and the foremost North Carolina surrogate for McCain, said he thought McCain and Palin stacked up well on the issues. As he waited to greet Palin at Piedmont Triad International Airport on Thursday, Burr said it was not the McCain campaign’s fault that so much time has been spent on the negative.

“The difficulty is that the campaigns tend to migrate to where the national mainstream media want to go,” Burr said. “The last thing the mainstream media wants to do is talk about issues. Their role has become more about entertainment rather than news.”

The “left-wing liberal media” also came in for criticism from the country singer Hank Williams Jr., who sang the “Star Spangled Banner” and a campaign song he wrote for McCain and Palin.

Palin interacted with the crowd, estimated at 2,000, several times during her speech. At one point, she said that McCain would invest in new energy technologies as well as tap domestic sources of coal and oil.

“We’ll also drill safely for the billions of barrels of oil offshore,” she said. “We need to drill here and drill now.”

That sparked the crowd to chant, “Drill, baby, drill.”

In reply, Palin let loose her signature, “You betcha.”

She also talked about Republicans’ plans to support parents of special-needs children, such as her son Trig, who has Down syndrome.

“These children are not problems, they are priorities,” she said, spotting a sign in the audience that read, “Extra Chromosome = Extra Love.”

She said, “That’s kind of cool.”

Not all in the crowd were supporters. Police and campaign staff removed at least two groups of Obama supporters who chanted slogans for the Democratic candidate during the rally. When the second one disrupted the speech, prompting Republican-friendly audience members to chant “No-Bama,” Palin interjected.

“You know what? Maybe we need to tell security that maybe he need not go, maybe he needs to stay and learn something,” Palin said, prompting cheers.

After the rally, those who attended said they were pleased by the speech and by being able to see Palin in person.

“You can relate to her, she’s one of us,” said Shannon Loy, 38, of Burlington.

Palin later attended a fundraiser at the home of New Breed CEO Louis DeJoy and his wife, former Ambassador to Estonia Aldona Wos. No media access was granted.

According to the campaign, Palin is expected to leave Greensboro this morning. Obama and McCain will campaign in the state this weekend.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com