ARREN, Mich. - The good news here for George W. Bush is that he enjoys all the political advantages of the party's favorite son: The governor is with him, the state GOP leadership is with him, and he has the means to field a gold-plated organization on primary day Feb. 22.
The bad news is that Bush enjoyed many of those advantages in New Hampshire.
This bustling, prosperous state of nearly 10 million people was supposed to be the Texas governor's firewall - the first big industrial state to vote for a presidential nominee, the state that could stop the surge by John McCain.
Should anything go wrong in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, Michigan Governor John Engler once bragged, ''I'm solid asbestos.''
So confident was Engler that he pushed to move up Michigan's primary, from March to February, in the hope that his could be the state that would seal Bush's nomination, with all the political bragging rights that could flow from that.
Nobody's bragging now.
McCain's resounding victory in New Hampshire is echoing here loudly. The first new polls are not expected until this week, but the Arizona senator is drawing big, boisterous crowds, and early predictions of a Bush romp have vanished.
''Bush's advantage has been that he's inevitable,'' said Joseph A. Schlesinger, professor emeritus of political science at Michigan State University. ''You take that away from him, and what's left?''
It's not hard to see where Bush's air of inevitability came from: The governor, the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state, 50 out of 58 Republican legislators and 21 of 23 GOP senators are with him. Phone banks have been set up throughout the state to help get out his vote. His television commercials run frequently. And just three weeks ago, he led McCain 51 percent to 17 percent in a Detroit News poll.
McCain's television presence, on the other hand, is limited. He has one state senator at the helm of his campaign and not much else to speak of in the way of institutional allies. But some believe the McCain wave, particularly if it leads to a win in South Carolina Feb. 19, could wash away the Bush advantage.
''If this thing takes on the character of a groundswell that just comes out of the earth, that's a firestorm sweeping across the American landscape, it may not matter how much money you have or TV you have or phone banks, and I can see it happening,'' said Bill Ballenger, editor of the influential Inside Michigan Politics newsletter.
Like South Carolina's, the Michigan primary is open, which means that independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican contest. In New Hampshire, the Republican primary was open to independent voters. McCain beat Bush there in all categories, among all types of voters, according to exit surveys.
''We are obviously seeking the Republican vote first,'' McCain said yesterday morning as he campaigned in the heart of Macomb County, home to many blue-collar Democrats. ''We want the independents and we'd appreciate the Democrats.
''One of the reasons we would appreciate the Democrats is that a formula for success for Ronald Reagan was the so-called Reagan Democrats,'' he said. ''The whole essence of the Republican Party should be to reach out across party lines and appeal to a broad cross-section of voters.''
At the Ukrainian Cultural Center here, McCain was greeted by nearly 1,000 people. As he does at just about every campaign stop, he promised to always tell them the truth, decried the special interests, mocked the establishment, and fielded questions about Belarus, Grozny, and the Ukraine with ease. He also reminded everyone that it was ''dear, dear, beloved'' Reagan's 89th birthday.
Most of the questions he took came from people who were already fans, many of whom clutched his new book, hoping for an autograph.
Howard Stewart, a General Motors worker and member of Local 735 of the United Auto Workers union, sat in the front row of the auditorium and told McCain how much he admires him and admires the campaign he is running.
''So often, so many people in the Republican Party are harmful to the union I belong in and I depend on for my standard of living,'' Stewart told McCain, crediting the UAW with his good pay and health and education benefits. ''If you were president, would I have any reason to be worried about that?''
McCain didn't equivocate, though he prefaced his reply by complimenting Stewart and other auto workers for making American cars competitive once again with foreign brands. And he praised unions for playing a ''vital role'' in American history.
But McCain went on to tell Stewart that he comes from a right-to-work state and he doesn't believe in shops where all employees are obliged to join a union. He also complained that the teachers unions ''are fighting us tooth and nail'' to prevent charter schools and vouchers from taking root.
That said, McCain told Stewart, ''I don't think it's appropriate for any president of the United States to be antiunion.''
Stewart says he is voting for McCain.
Cheryl Constantino, a bookkeeper from Harper Woods, arrived early with 13-month-old Catherine to listen to McCain thrash the lobbyists, the special interests, and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Originally, she said, she was supporting Bush for president. Now, she said, she's supporting McCain.
''It's time to have a president we can trust,'' Constantino said. ''I think he can butt heads with the establishment and win.''
It is that kind of talk that gives the McCain campaign the giddy sense that there are cracks in the firewall.
''It's very hard to have a Republican firewall in South Carolina and Michigan if a third of your electorate are Democrats and independents coming into your primary to vote for John McCain,'' said Bill McInturff, McCain's pollster.
Yet McCain, whose photo appeared on the cover of four newsmagazines yesterday, spent much of the day calling himself the underdog who is up against the Engler machine.
For his part, Engler still insists that Bush will win in Michigan, but there is much less swagger behind his words.
''The last thing I wanted to suggest was that people are being told what they have to do,'' said Engler.
He believes McCain will have a far tougher time in Michigan than he had in New Hampshire, which he contends is smaller than half of Wayne County.
''If he covered Michigan the way he covered New Hampshire he'd have to spend 630 days here and hold 1,080 town hall meetings,'' Engler said.
