ASHINGTON - John McCain plans to debut in a new role next week: team player.
Though he characterizes his following as a ''reform movement'' and compares himself to the late insurgent Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, McCain said yesterday he is going to Philadelphia committed to the election of Governor George W. Bush and the retention of a Republican majority in Congress.
In an interview at his Senate office, McCain said he intended to ''devote a significant portion'' of his speech Tuesday night at the Republican national convention to ''arguing for the election of Governor Bush'' rather than promoting his own agenda, which includes campaign finance reform and other issues inimical to the GOP leadership.
''I'll talk about campaign reform in a broad sense,'' he said, ''but I'll talk strongly about cynicism and how it affects young Americans who need to restore their faith in government.'' The Arizona senator said the Bush campaign had not asked to approve his prepared remarks, adding that he had no plans to try to rally his loyalists in the manner of Patrick Buchanan's fiery speech at the 1992 Republican convention.
He said he would also forgo the opportunity to clash with vested party interests at another high-profile appearance in Philadelphia during a ''shadow convention'' hosted by Arianna Huffington.
Instead of pushing his favorite issues on Bush, McCain said he would campaign with the new Republican nominee for three days following the convention, a mission that includes an overnight stay by Bush and his wife, Laura, at the McCains' retreat in the picturesque Arizona desert.
For much of the fall, McCain said he would campaign for Republican House and Senate candidates and planned another week of travel with Bush.
Yet as McCain insisted that his relationship with Bush was cordial, there are still lingering signs of animosity between the Bush headquarters in Austin and the remnants of the McCain campaign, which have been relocated in private offices on Capitol Hill.
McCain was said by one of his lieutenants to have been ''bemused'' by events late last week which resulted in a brief boomlet to put him on the GOP ticket before Tuesday's announcement that Dick Cheney would serve as Bush's running mate.
According to Republican sources, the affair was triggered after Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was dropped from consideration and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott advised Bush not to consider either McCain or two of his supporters in the Senate, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Fred Thompson of Tennessee, because they were ''not team players.''
(When asked about Lott's warning in a separate interview, McCain's chief political adviser, John Weaver, reflected the hostility between McCain and the Senate leader by saying, ''It's hard to be a `team player' when the leader takes you to the same canyon over and over again.'' Lott has repeatedly undercut McCain's initiatives on campaign finance.)
McCain said he was content with the choice of Cheney - ''I think he's entirely capable of attracting independent voters'' - while confirming details of his conversation with Ridge that led to speculation that McCain might wind up as Bush's running mate.
''Tom was obviously concerned about the ticket,'' McCain said. ''He never said to me he was out of the running, but the fact he called seemed to me that he had been told he was not on the list. He said: `Would you accept if asked?' I said: `If I was directly contacted by Governor Bush it would be very difficult to say no.' He said: `You ought to call Governor Bush.' I said: `I don't want to call.'
''In reality, nothing had happened,'' McCain said.
McCain said he preferred to remain in the Senate and cultivate his ence. He said he had moved from campaign mode into ''what I think is a reform movement. ''
Asked which political figure he compared himself to, McCain said without hesitation: ''Bobby Kennedy. I think we struck that same sort of chord of enthusiasm with young people.''
McCain said he was intrigued by Ronald Steel's recent book, ''In Love With Night,'' which deals with RFK's political passions as well as his dark, vindictive side; the ''Good Bobby'' and the ''Bad Bobby.''
''At the end, he made up for all the Bad Bobbies,'' said McCain, who has his own personal history of poor discipline and foul temper. ''It's almost a redemption story, a story of a boy who became a man. Bobby took all the intensities he misused when he was basically the henchman, the royal executioner'' for President Kennedy, ''and he channeled them into the good'' in the 1968 presidential campaign.
When he discussed the book with his friend and colleague, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, McCain said, ''Ted didn't agree. He sent me another, more adulatory book about his brother.''
