ANCHESTER, N.H. - When Senator John McCain of Arizona was a blip in New Hampshire polls early this year, he laid out an audacious strategy: recruit thousands of veterans as supporters, market his life story in an autobiography and free videos, and persuade Independents and Democrats to back him as a reform-minded candidate.
Piece by piece, McCain's strategy of focusing largely on New Hampshire has fallen into place. Meanwhile, the national front-runner for the Republican nomination, George W. Bush, has seen little or no growth in support over the past few months in the first primary state, according to a new Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll.
The clash will intensify tonight on WMUR-TV as the entire field of Republican candidates gathers. The forum is the first in the 2000 race to include the Texas governor.
Bush and McCain have different goals in the 90-minute debate, which begins at 8 p.m. and which will be broadcast in Boston on the Fox News Channel. McCain, who has thrived on his blunt, maverick style, is switching gears. He said yesterday that his top priority now is to appear ''presidential.''
Bush, who irked some in New Hampshire by not participating in two earlier gatherings, enters the forum hoping to show mastery of the issues, at a time when questions have been raised about his depth of experience and knowledge.
But Bush also arrives amid some tension about his relative lack of one-on-one campaigning in the Granite State. On Tuesday, for example, Bush's New Hampshire state director, Joel Maiola, called one of the state's most influential Republicans, Hugh Gregg, and chastised him for seconding the criticism that Bush had not spent enough time here. Gregg is a former governor, and is the father of Senator Judd Gregg, one of Bush's top advisers.
''He's been up here and had pretty programmed appearances, and as you know, you don't win that way in New Hampshire,'' the uncommitted Hugh Gregg said in an interview with The Boston Globe. ''But he's well aware of that.''
The other candidates in tonight's meeting will be publisher Steve Forbes, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, former Reagan aide Gary Bauer, and talk-show host Alan Keyes.
The event format might stifle some of the debate. Moderators from WMUR and Fox News will ask separate questions to the candidates, who are not allotted time to question one another.
Despite the importance of ''retail'' politics, a recent Dartmouth College study found that 80 percent of New Hampshire voters do not meet a candidate in person, which makes televised debates an essential way to communicate with voters. So one of Bush's goals is to convince people that he is waging his own campaign, not following a strategic script, and that he is fully qualified for the GOP nomination.
''New Hampshire Republicans are a little bit more cranky, a little bit more appreciative of people who go against the grain, and that describes McCain,'' said the Republican Party state chairman, Stephen Duprey, who like the elder Gregg is uncommitted in the contest. ''These are fickle voters. To some degree, Bush's early success has worked against him.''
McCain's strategy is based on the premise that he will live or die politically according to his performance in the Live Free or Die State. McCain's approach relies on the state's large veteran population. New Hampshire has one of the highest per-capita concentrations of veterans in the country, with 139,000 people of the state's population of 1.1 million affiliated or formerly affiliated with the military.
In June, McCain took the unusual step of sending 50,000 biographical videos to voters and launched a sizable television advertising buy in Boston, Manchester, and Vermont stations well before Bush.
McCain's many campaign appearances have been boosted by his best-selling autobiography, ''Faith of My Fathers,'' which includes a harrowing account of his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain has also benefited from his reputation as a reformer at odds with his party leaders, from tobacco regulation to his effort to overhaul the campaign finance system.
''He's been doing exactly what he should be doing in New Hampshire,'' Hugh Gregg said of McCain. ''He's out in the street, talking to people and he's here all the time. I've never seen the veterans so fired up as they are this time.''
McCain has made more than 20 trips to the state, spending 40 days here and holding more than 60 town hall meetings with more than 1,000 questions asked and answered, according to his staff.
Bush, who did not begin campaigning until June, has traveled here eight times, spending about 12 days campaigning, though his campaign was unwilling to provide its own tally. His events, typically held at fire stations or Chamber of Commerce gatherings, have attracted large crowds who listen to Bush give a stump speech, ask a few questions and then linger to shake the governor's hand.
Another sign of McCain's strategic success so far is his courting of Democrats. Under New Hampshire law, an Independent can change registration on primary day and vote for any candidate, which has led to much speculation about the battle between McCain and Bill Bradley, the Democrat and former New Jersey senator, for the Independent vote.
But McCain has gone one step further, taking advantage of a another provision that allowed a Democrat or Republican to switch party affiliation by Oct. 31. The McCain campaign says it persuaded 2,500 Democrats to re-register as Republicans or Independents so they could vote for McCain in the Feb. 1 primary. While such claims are impossible to verify, Duprey, the state chairman, said he believed the McCain claim to be correct.
Bush, by contrast, made no effort to persuade Democrats to change their registration so they could vote for him, a campaign spokeswoman said.
''If McCain did that, they did a good job,'' said a Bush adviser, Thomas D. Rath, a Concord lawyer. ''Clearly they have been very successful as they have emerged as the alternative.''
It may sound odd that Bush advisers are praising McCain, but it is by design. The Bush campaign has made a calculated decision that it is not worth publicly attacking the Arizonan.
''The fact is that McCain has been here a lot, he is a quality candidate with a compelling story to tell,'' Rath said, referring to McCain's Vietnam War experience. ''Nobody here dislikes him. You will not find anybody on our side saying anything bad about him.''
But tales about McCain's war heroics often do not translate into electoral success. Bob Dole went to lengths to advertise his experience as a wounded World War II veteran but wound up losing the 1996 GOP primary here to commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.
But Bush is likely to face the brunt of the attacks tonight.
Forbes, the millionaire self-financed candidate, has been pounding Bush for weeks as a ''Republican lite'' candidate, while making a tactical decision of not going after McCain. Yesterday, Forbes announced he will begin airing an ad that directly criticizes Bush for the first time, saying the Texas governor's suggestion that he might raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits is a ''betrayal.'' At the same time, the Sierra Club has begun airing ads that attack Bush's environmental record in Texas.
Bush sought yesterday to pre-empt one expected avenue of attack from his opponents by unveiling his tax cut plan. But his proposal to lower the top income tax rate from 39.5 percent to 33 percent and to decrease other marginal rates is still likely to be criticized by Forbes, who has proposed a 17 percent flat tax.
All this focus on Bush could work to McCain's advantage - or benefit the Texas governor if he stands up well under the assault.
''I'm not the least bit surprised that McCain is coming on as strong as he is,'' said John D. Harrigan, the publisher of three North Country newspapers and a veteran observer of the presidential scene. ''I think New Hampshire people resent assumptions and resent being told what they're going to do before they do it. ... All of a sudden, George W. gets declared the unbeatable front-runner too early, and it sticks in people's craw.''
McCain, who is mounting a minimal effort in the first-caucus state of Iowa, is banking on a strong performance in two other early states: South Carolina, which has the largest per-capita number of veterans, and in his home state of Arizona. But he lags far behind Bush in South Carolina polls, and he has been conducting a running feud with Arizona's governor, Jane Dee Hull, a Bush backer who has said that McCain has a bad temper.
Still, Bush advisers are among the first to say that New Hampshire is likely to set the pace for the campaign. ''As the race narrows, Bush will be here a lot more,'' Rath said. ''Now it is clear that New Hampshire and Iowa have the capacity to decide the race.''
Jill Zuckman reported from Manchester; Michael Kranish from Washington.
