The Arizona senator and the Alaska governor, McCain's vice presidential choice, spoke in Cedarburg, Wis., on a main street that city officials said has been virtually unchanged since 1900, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

"We're going to start to work for the people of this country," McCain said. "It's over for the special interests. It's over!"

Palin focused on the war in Iraq, criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for opposing the troop surge. If Obama's position had prevailed, she said, America would be less safe from al-Qaida, and it "would have left millions of innocent people to a violent fate."

McCain said he and Palin would visit small towns across America to talk about change.