The Old Magic, With a New Twist

And while he still likes to start off with a stale joke or two, his stump speech quickly turns serious as he gets to the war in Iraq. In 2000, McCain's "straight talk" often meant wry one-liners about wayward Washington. This year, it means grim, world-weary warnings about the Middle East, even if they cast a pall.

On Friday in Manchester, he segued from a joke about two inmates in a prison cafeteria to declare that "we face a transcendent challenge, the threat of radical Islamic extremism." Earlier this month in Bedford, he went from an oft-told joke about Irish twins at a bar to describing an encounter with a mother who lost her son in Iraq: "I don't know how you console someone like that."

Even at a lighthearted event alongside Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, McCain struck a sober tone: "It's long and tough and tragic and sad," he said of the war, saying it has been necessary because unlike the North Vietnamese, "These people want to follow us home."

The apparent success of Bush's troop increase this year in reducing violence has helped spark McCain's campaign -- he advocated the strategy -- but it has not lightened his tone. If anything, it has an added an edge of vindication, as he reminds voters that he is proving the pundits wrong, both about the surge and his campaign. "My political career was judged at an end, but I said at the time that I would rather lose a campaign than a war," he said Friday.

Longtime supporters here say it is the same McCain on the trail, simply a different moment for the country. "There is more of a sense of urgency in the campaign, but these are serious times," said Richard Brothers, the state employment security commissioner.

But the different tone is attracting a different audience. In 2000, McCain beat Bush among registered Republicans but ran up his 18 percent margin of victory by swamping him among the more than 60 percent of independents who opted to vote in the GOP primary. This year, with Bush and the war deeply unpopular in the state, polls show that a majority of undeclared voters intend to vote in the Democratic primary.

As a result, McCain's campaign is aiming more narrowly at independents who lean Republican, as well as at registered Republicans. And although McCain has lost some voters in the middle of the spectrum, there are signs he picking up more traditional Republicans, particularly now that former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was targeting many of the same voters, has scaled back in the state. The most recent polls show McCain consistently gaining ground on and almost tied with Romney, who had long been leading in New Hampshire.

He won the endorsement of the Union Leader of Manchester, whose conservative editorial board in 2000 picked Steve Forbes, deriding McCain as liberal. His leadership team includes prominent mainstream Republicans, including Steve Duprey, a former state party chairman, and John Lyons, a Portsmouth lawyer. Lyons backed Bush in 2000 but is now with McCain because "his position on social issues is consistent" and "the country needs someone who speaks with passion, not a scripted message."

McCain's events are full of rank-and-file Republicans who report, almost sheepishly, that they backed Bush in the 2000 primary. Andreas Reif, a Manchester philosophy professor who supported Forbes and Bush in 2000, said he is leaning toward McCain, even though he still has doubts about the candidate's support of campaign finance reform. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks put a priority on military expertise, he said, and the scandals and spending excesses in Congress under GOP rule made McCain's reform message seem "prophetic."

"Times have changed," he said.