PETERBOROUGH, N.H. -- Last summer, even with free ice cream, John McCain couldn't have attracted two-dozen people to his first meeting with voters here.
But on Sunday they filled the public assembly hall in this famously gorgeous community (the inspirational site of Thornton Wilder's ''Our Town'') - a solid 1,600 of them - to chuckle at his stand-up, poke him with skeptical questions, nod unconsciously when he agreed with some of his fans only to challenge them to reach out to those who don't agree, and know that they were witnessing something special in politics.
Bill Bradley could have ended up the New Hampshire primary like McCain, basking in respect, enjoying the game, and proud of having created genuine policy alternatives for conservatives and independents alike. But on the ''change'' side of this cycle's equation, it was McCain who won the role of Thornton Wilder's metaphorical stage manager - in charge and leading, but always gently and reasonably.
Bradley, whom I also shadowed on this strange day, chose instead to be Sampson, pushing on the walls of his party with a torrent of invective even more bitter and personal than his attacks last week in Iowa.
Don't miss the point here. Bradley could easily win today, and McCain could just as easily lose. The point is the implications of both possible events.
If McCain loses, he would get a mass bow worthy of the Tennessee Titans for a valiant effort that just fell short. George W. Bush would get full credit, and not just for rising to McCain's spirited challenge and coming from behind to beat him.
The Bush campaign took at least two hard looks - one right after Iowa last week and one last weekend - at going as negative on McCain as Bradley has on Gore.
For two reasons - one strategic and one tactical - the governor decided against invective. For one thing, the reasoning was that it would be better to win on a higher plane for the usual task of stitching the Republican Party back together for a general election.
For another, if McCain hangs on to win, better to go toward the megastate primaries without the black mark of attack campaigning next to the Bush name. The decision not to brand McCain some kind of untrustworthy traitor could always be revisited before the Feb. 19 South Carolina primary.
But in Bradley's case, after having fallen behind this month, a comeback that nips Gore could be attributable only Bradley's attacks on Gore's character and integrity over the last week. Taking that message national, into arenas where character attacks are blood sport (like New York, Ohio, and California, for starters) would risk opening deep rifts among Democrats and would challenge the allegiance of the vast majority of them to the policies of the Clinton administration.
Until last week, the McCain-Bush and Bradley-Gore contests were neither fundamentally different nor outside the bounds of normal give-and-take politics. The main elements - my plan's better than your plan; my experience is richer than yours; some of your votes and decisions from the past are inconsistent with your present stands; you have the establishment I have the people - are traditional. There's always hype, but above all, there was debate, as well as debates.
Bradley changed all that. When Bush went after details of McCain's ideas, McCain defended and countered; the public learned things, and so did the participants. When Gore and Bradley went after each other's proposals starting last fall, the same thing happened, until Bradley appeared to be losing the debate.
Since the final days in Iowa, stripped of euphemisms, this is what Bradley has had to say about Gore: He's a tobacco prostitute, a Willie Horton-introducing, lying, untrustworthy, possibly illegal fund-raiser who is unfit for the Oval Office and not committed to protecting a woman's right to choose.
Behind this assault is an oddly Olympian view of self. In a gathering in Exeter, Bradley offered ''a world of new possibilities guided by goodness'' while a supporter warmed up the audience by saying Bradley ''encourages us to be better people by his example.''
McCain, who has had to sit through sinister suggestions that he is a tempestuous wacko who peddles influence for campaign cash, has never lost his cool. He has sharp elbows and is not be trifled with, but it is his relationship with the people that has made him the star of the campaign, win or lose.
At the end of his 104th town meeting here, a fellow asked him if he would support, after years of broken promises, a full funding of the federal share (40 percent) of the costs of mandated special education.
Absolutely, McCain replied, but only if you make sure that only truly needy and eligible kids get in such programs.
That candor and directness have made McCain the champion of those yearning for a new, accommodative politics.
Bradley could easily have been that candidate, but at crunch time, to twist a line from a poet from Vermont, he took the road more traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
