IVONIA, Mich. - The fighter pilot is fighting back.
After taking a shellacking in South Carolina, John McCain arrived here yesterday, defiant and feisty, determined to take back his mantle as the reformer in the Republican race for president.
''If you want the government back that's been stolen from you by the special interests and the big-money people and a system that George Bush wants to perpetuate, then you're going to vote for me and you're going to get our vote out,'' he told a raucous crowd in this Detroit suburb.
Bush, however, subtly suggested that McCain might be suffering from a bad case of the sour grapes. ''I guess you can judge a leader by how they react to adversity,'' Bush said of the tougher tone coming from his opponent. Later, at a news conference, Bush said, ''All of us are going to have to react to our victories and our defeats in our own way.''
McCain disputed the inference, saying his hard words were required to show Michigan voters the difference between the two men.
With polls suggesting a dead heat here, McCain was cognizant that time is running out as he scrambled to make his points before tomorrow's primary. Bush, on the other hand, seemed to revert to his laid-back pre-New Hampshire ways. He did not hold his first event of the day until 4 p.m. at Lawrence Technical University in Detroit. Earlier, he attended church in Grand Rapids.
''I feel great. I had a good night's sleep,'' Bush said. ''Last night lifted my spirits, and my spirits are still high. We'll carry Michigan. I feel confident about it. I know I have got a lot of work to do.''
On McCain's bus, and throughout a day of campaigning in East Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Traverse City, the senator insisted that he is the only reform candidate in the race.
''If Governor Bush is a reformer, I'm an astronaut,'' said McCain, whose themes were appropriated by Bush in South Carolina after McCain beat him badly in New Hampshire. He also said that anyone who believes Bush is a reformer ''believes in the tooth fairy.''
McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, in the so-called Hanoi Hilton, acknowledged that Bush had knocked the wind out of him Saturday, but he showed no signs of surrender.
''We took a punch yesterday, but we get up off the floor,'' McCain said. ''I've gotten up off the floor. I've taken a few punches, I've crashed a few airplanes. I've spent a couple years in a hotel where there was no mint on the pillow.''
While Bush has been borrowing lines from McCain, McCain echoed Steve Forbes and Bob Dole yesterday as he took after the Texas governor.
''Spending in the state of Texas went up 34 percent, while spending by the Clinton administration went up 20 percent,'' he said, a refrain often used by Forbes. ''That's not conservative and that's not a reformer.''
McCain's efforts to break the link between the special interests, their big-money contributions, and the actions of lawmakers also represent what the GOP should be, he said.
''We're in this fight for the heart and soul of the Republican party and America,'' said McCain, whose friend, Dole, beat back Patrick J. Buchanan in 1996 with those very words.
McCain's appearances in Michigan were marked by the theme song from ''Star Wars,'' appropriate for a man who often compares himself to Luke Skywalker battling his way out of the Death Star.
In addition to presenting his reform credentials, McCain went after Bush repeatedly. He cited a bill to reform HMOs in Texas that Bush vetoed but has been taking credit for on the campaign trail.
McCain pointed out that Bush never proposed a plan to overhaul the campaign-finance system in his 5 years as governor. He called Bush's recent campaign finance proposal ''a joke and a fraud.''
''Unless Governor Bush can identify one spending cut, one corporate welfare loophole he would close, he cannot call himself a reformer,'' McCain said.
He also assailed Bush for spending the federal budget surplus entirely on tax cuts and to the benefit of the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans. ''There's no new money for Social S ecurity, Medicare, or paying down the debt,'' McCain said.
McCain said he would take 62 percent of the surplus and put it in the Social Security trust fund, which is $5 trillion to $7 trillion underfunded.
Also yesterday, McCain received the endorsement of US Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who had been backing Bush.
Bush, however, appeared untroubled by King's decision. ''He must've gotten his newspaper late this morning,'' Bush joked.
But he grew defensive when asked about King's claim that Bush had offended Catholics by speaking at Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a conservative Christian school that critics say promotes segregation and holds anti-Catholic views.
''Everybody's got a right to do what they think they need to do,'' Bush said of King. ''I don't think Peter King's endorsement is going to give it much of a boost in Michigan.''
Bush also took issue with a radio ad released by Geoffrey Feiger, the attorney best known for representing assisted-suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian. In the ad, Feiger says: ''Supporting Republican tort reform is dumb. Now Engler wants you to support George W. Bush. That's dumber.'' Feiger was referring to Michigan Governor John Engler, a Republican.
Bush seemed delighted by the opportunity the ad provided. He told a crowd at Lawrence Technological University about Feiger's ad, as well as about reports that Feiger would vote for McCain.
''There's nothing we can do about that except this: We can rally our friends and neighbors, rally our kind of folk, to go to the polls and say to Dr. Kevorkian's lawyer, `You're not going to pick who the nominee of the Republican party is.'''
