EWPORT BEACH, Calif. - Among Republicans in this most Republican of California coastal towns, there's a feeling that something's not quite right about John McCain.
Lynda Ward, for example, was never terribly comfortable with the Arizona senator. So last week, she cast an absentee ballot for Texas Governor George W. Bush, whom she described as ''nice, kind, family-oriented and moral.''
''In the beginning, McCain sounded liberal,'' said Ward, a real estate properties manager. ''Then he said he's a Reagan Republican, but I don't think he really is.''
Despite McCain's 18-year voting record as a fiscal and social conservative in Congress, his Republican problem is widespread in California, as it is nationally. While he succeeds among independents and Democrats, he has struggled within his party.
Tomorrow, when voters here go to the polls, McCain is expected to lose the Republican primary to Bush by a wide margin. Recent polls show McCain trailing Bush among California's 5 million Republicans by as many as 20 points. And only Republican voters will determine who wins the 162 delegates at stake, one-sixth of the total necessary to win the nomination.
McCain's trouble with Republicans seems born of many sources, interviews with voters and political observers suggest. As a newcomer to the national scene, McCain is being judged on fragmentary perceptions of his record and character. First impressions thus become crucial; early doubts, hard to shake.
Thus, to some Republicans, McCain's combative stump style can be off-putting. (To Ward, he seems ''mean.'') To others, he seems less reliably conservative than Bush. His reformist calls to throw open the doors of the Republican party to new constituencies have been greeted by many with puzzlement or wariness.
It seems odd, some say, that so many Republican leaders, particularly in Congress, view him with distaste. And his message of fiscal responsibility seems to have been largely lost in the mix.
So it is that McCain has been unable to reach people like William and Carol Young, both Republicans and both planning to vote for Bush tomorrow. William Young, a retired auto-parts dealer, did not like McCain's attack on the Christian right nor does he perceive McCain to be conservative enough.
And Carol Young, an appraiser, questions McCain's temperament and the effect that 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam had on him emotionally.
''He shoots from the hip without thinking, and we don't need a man like that,'' she said. ''He needs to know what he says has a lot of ramifications, and he needs to be more careful.''
The couple, who also voted for former president Bush, say they have confidence in the younger Bush. ''I think he's better prepared,'' said William Young. Added his wife: ''He comes from an established political family. He knows the ropes.''
McCain's lag among Republicans has not gone unnoticed by his campaign, of course. Bill McInturff, McCain's pollster, compares it to a brand marketing problem.
''The Bush brand is a generation old and the McCain brand is about four weeks old,'' McInturff said. That's not a problem for independents or Democrats who were never attached to the ''Bush brand'' in the first place, he said.
But for Republicans, ''You're asking them if they want Bud, Bud Lite, or a whole new beer,'' he said. ''It's easier to get them to transfer from Bud to Bud Lite than to try a whole different beer.''
Only in New Hampshire and Arizona has McCain been able to win a majority of Republican support. But he spent about a year traversing the Granite State, letting voters get to know him, and in his home state of Arizona, voters already know him and his record well. In Michigan, the only other state McCain has won, Republicans supported Bush by 66 percent to 29 percent.
In other states that have held primaries, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington state, McCain lost the Republican vote by more than 40 percent each time.
McCain officials are hoping that the senator's final venture into California today will soothe concerns among GOP voters and give him the boost he needs for tomorrow's primary.
''If California Republicans go to vote on Tuesday knowing that John McCain wants to save Social Security, cut government spending, ban Internet taxes, and run a school-voucher program that doesn't take money from the public schools, we'll win,'' said Dan Schnur, McCain's communications director and a veteran California strategist.
But McCain hasn't been talking much about those things during the past week as he grappled with attacks from the Bush campaign and lashed out at the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Christian conservative leaders.
''What was especially hurtful to him is that he's gone off message the past few days,'' said John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College here. ''Instead of sticking to reform, he's gone off on his Captain Queeg routine, arguing that the religious right has stolen his strawberries.''
Kevin Spillane, a Republican political consultant in Sacramento, said Republican voters want to hear about managing federal spending, cutting pork barrel projects, and improving education. They don't want to hear about campaign finance reform or the Christian right, he said.
''Republican voters are suspicious of him,'' Spillane said. ''They don't like that the media likes him, and they don't like that Democrats and independents like him, either.''
Here in Orange County, traditionally a conservative bastion, there is a Republican civil war for control of the Central Committee, which oversees county government. It is old guard vs. new, arch conservative vs. moderate.
Marilyn Brewer, the only California assemblywoman to endorse McCain, thinks this quiet revolution, as she puts it, will help him at the polls tomorrow.
''I know he's coming from behind,'' conceded Brewer, who represents this white, wealthy, conservative town. ''He's up against the old establishment.''
But even younger Republicans seem to be skeptical of McCain. Mark Nelson, the father of two toddlers, says he is voting for Bush.
''I think it would be difficult for McCain to get things done in the White House,'' said Nelson, a manager at Chevron. ''Not enough members of Congress seem to respect him.''
