ANCHESTER, N.H. - Senator John McCain left New Hampshire on an ecstatic note last night, bound for South Carolina to resume his challenge to Governor George W. Bush. But after his carefully-planned battle in Dixie, McCain will be forced to resort to guerrilla tactics against a strong Bush organization around the country.
Meanwhile, the close Democratic race between Vice President Al Gore and Bill Bradley sets up an unprecedented day of high-stakes primaries March 7 when delegates are chosen in 13 states, including California, New York, and the rest of New England.
The two presidential nominations may still be determined by that evening in early March, but the results in New Hampshire have at least insured that the next five weeks will be interesting.
Bush appears to be in good position to rebound Tuesday when Delaware hosts the second Republican primary. According to Basil Battaglia, the longtime state GOP chairman, the Texas governor already has ''a huge force on the ground'' in the tiny state. Thirty-one of the 34 Republicans in the Delaware Legislature are supporting Bush.
Bush will campaign in Delaware this week, where his only competitor is Steve Forbes, who captured the state by default four years ago.
McCain is concentrating on the Feb. 19 primary in South Carolina, where he has been campaigning heavily for a year. After a warm reception at a Republican banquet in Columbia last March, McCain targeted South Carolina - where veterans are a huge constituency.
A CNN-Time survey in South Carolina completed last week showed McCain had closed to within 20 points of Bush after trailing badly. The magnitude of McCain's victory in New Hampshire ''throws everything up in the air'' in South Carolina, said Tony Denny, a veteran GOP operative who is in charge of Forbes's campaign in the state.
Twice in the past three campaign cycles, South Carolina has served as a killing field for promising candidacies. In 1988, the state party apparatus united behind Bush's father, who was vice president, to effectively end Bob Dole's campaign. Four years ago, the same machinery broke the back of Patrick Buchanan's uprising, assuring Dole the nomination.
Once again, the South Carolina leadership is arrayed behind the favorite, Bush. But the organization assembled by the late Lee Atwater and former governor Carroll Campbell split into factions after Republican Governor David Beasley's defeat in 1998.
''We used to be a small, minority party where the establishment hung together very tightly,'' said Trey Walker, who worked as executive director for the state GOP for six years before joining the McCain campaign. ''All that has changed, and we have a lot of new leaders.''
While Bush has the support of Campbell and of the venerable US Senator Strom Thurmond, Young Turks in the party such as Representatives Lindsey Graham and Mark Sanford are allied with McCain. The state's House speaker, David Wilkins, lined up 50 Republican representatives for Bush a year ago, but 23 other legislators subsequently defied the party leadership to side with McCain.
The Arizona senator is poised for South Carolina. Afterward, his campaign may have to rely on an ad hoc effort fueled by his underdog appeal and the energies of his admirers.
''McCain has a two-state strategy, but they don't have a strategy beyond that,'' said Stuart Stevens, a Bush adviser. ''Bush has a national strategy. We have the staying power, and nobody thought we'd do it without getting our uniform dirty.''
With his huge campaign bank account, Bush can throw up lines of defense in every state.
McCain will also be flung into a number of Republican primaries closed to the kind of independent voters who rallied around him in New Hampshire.
In places like New York, Bush's allies in the GOP hierarchy are attempting to keep McCain off the ballot in half of the state's congressional districts.
On the Democratic side, both candidates will begin throwing much of their resources into two giant states, California and New York. Even as they carry on a coast-to-coast battle, Gore and Bradley will be competing for delegates in several other major states, including Massachusetts, Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland, Connecticut, and Georgia. Never in the history of American politics have so many delegates been at stake on one day.
A Gore lieutenant, who asked not to be identified, said the vice president enjoyed ''a healthy lead'' in California but would be confronted with strong competition in New York.
''Bradley will go to his base in New York. It's his home court,'' the aide said. ''We're playing early in the places where he should be strong, the Northeast.''
But after March 7, the primary schedule shifts to the South, where Gore is believed to have the allegiance of black voters, a key element in the Democratic Party coalition.
While the eyes of the nation are focused for the moment on the outcome in New Hampshire, Gore is the beneficiary of a significant behind-the-scenes development. He has built up an enormous advantage across the country among super-delegates - those Democratic officials and officeholders who constitute nearly one-fifth of the Democratic delegates to Los Angeles.
A CBS News survey of the 802 super-delegates by found that 472 expressed a preference for Gore compared to 46 who said they intended to support Bradley.
