BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - Listen to Rick Lazio laying out his beliefs before a couple of hundred supporters in this upstate town, and if you didn't know better, you might think he was the Democratic candidate for Senate, not the Republican one.
For much of the speech, in fact, if you shut your eyes and ears and just read the transcript afterward, you could reasonably guess the words were Hillary Rodham Clinton's, not her opponent's.
''I want to make sure New York gets the very best, everything it needs,'' Lazio pledged. And his list of needs includes clean water, fresh air, affordable housing, first-rate public education, help for the disabled, free cancer-screening for poor women, Medicare subsidies for prescription drugs, ''high-tech incubators'' to rev up the upstate economy - themes right out of the Clinton-era liberal's songbook.
This was Lazio's message at the Republican State convention in Buffalo on Tuesday, where the Long Island congressman was anointed the party's last-minute nominee after an ailing Rudolph Giuliani dropped out. And Lazio repeated the litany over and over on a three-day bus tour across New York's heartland that kicked off his campaign.
He did emphasize two differences, though, and they are forming the centerpiece of his campaign. First, he's a native New Yorker. Second, he's not Hillary Clinton.
Getting the most of Clinton's agenda without getting Clinton - that seems to be Lazio's pitch, and, judging from the reception so far, in the polls and on his bus tour (he calls his bus ''The Mainstream Express''), it seems to be striking a chord.
''When Rick Lazio wears a New York sports team hat, it actually fits,'' Governor George Pataki bellowed at the Buffalo convention, in a loudly cheered dig at Clinton's donning of a Yankees cap early in the race.
''Rick Lazio doesn't have to spend weeks going around the state in a bogus listening tour to find out what New Yorkers feel,'' Pataki went on. ''He's one of us.''
On the road, Lazio drew wild applause with similar phrases: ''For me, New York isn't just a mailing address, it's my home. ... I'm one of you.''
It may not be a theme that carries to New York City, where many people come from someplace else. But it resonates deeply upstate, where distrust of outsiders has long been prevalent - more so now, when the region continues to languish economically while the rest of the country, including New York City, soars.
Twenty-four hours into Lazio's bus-tour, every sidewalk spectator along the way was reciting the slogan. ''You're one of us and that's important,'' said Bill Byrne, owner of a milk factory that Lazio visited in Syracuse. ''He's one of us,'' said Frank Condella, a retired policeman who heard him speak outside a winery in Dundee. ''If you grow up in New York, you have a better idea of what New Yorkers want,'' said Sean Mahony, a student in Corning.
In an interview onboard his bus, Lazio connected the local-boy refrain to another theme he will be pushing hard - his four terms in the US House of Representatives.
''Where have you been for the last eight years? Ask both candidates that question,'' he said. Lazio's answer is that he has been sponsoring legislation on all those issues, while Clinton has ''just been talking.''
Lazio's campaign strategist, Michael Murphy, considers this distinction to be the key. ''What has Hillary Clinton ever done for New York?'' Murphy asked a couple of weeks ago.
Murphy is one of several refugees from Senator John McCain's presidential campaign who have joined Lazio, which could explain several touches similar to McCain's campaign - most notably the nicknamed bus and the image of a spontaneous, populist crusade.
''We're not going to hide behind some roped line,'' Lazio roared in Watkins Glen, where he and his wife, Patricia, walked down the town's main street, shaking hands along the way. ''We're not going to have scripted answers.''
That line drew some smiles from reporters who had read the transcript of Lazio's convention speech, which his aides had handed out before he delivered it. There, on page 16, after a line about how his father put the young Rick to work in his auto-supplies store ''at pretty low wages, I remember,'' a stage-direction read, in parentheses: ''Smile.'' (He did.)
Another anomaly: A professional make-up artist has been traveling on Lazio's bus this week, to cover - as much as possible - his bloated lip, caused by the eight stitches he received after he tripped and fell during a Memorial Day parade last Monday.
Finally, the crowds that turned out at the candidate's campaign bus stops this week were not exactly spontaneous, either. Several of the people said they had been phoned by party officials to show up at the events.
Then again, the enthusiasm that Lazio has prompted in such a short time is not entirely staged. Outside Binghamton, he made an unscheduled stop at a shopping mall to buy a video for the VCR on his bus (the movie was ''Analyze This''), and a couple dozen people - who would not have recognized him two weeks ago - approached him, smiling, to wish him well.
A poll taken last week, a few days before the Buffalo convention, showed the first lady and Lazio in a tie.
Clinton's strategists are aiming to beat Lazio on two fronts - issues and stature.
Though many Democrats are beginning to realize that Lazio is more moderate than the ''Newt Gingrich footsoldier'' that they attempted to paint him as at the start of his candidacy, they note some differences that will hurt him in much of this state.
While Lazio says he favors a woman's right to choose abortion, he has voted to ban late-term abortions, federal funding of abortions, and abortions in US military hospitals overseas. While he voted for the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban, he opposes the registration of handguns.
Several interest groups, on the left and the right, rate his congressional voting record close to 50 percent, meaning he has voted both for and against their interests in equal measure. Lazio sees this as confirmation of his ''mainstream'' appeal, while Clinton allies see it as a sign that he doesn't stand for anything. Some quip his bus should be called ''The Two-Faced Express.''
Clinton, playing on this sentiment and trying to knock down the carpetbagger charge, said yesterday to a cheering crowd of carpenters, ''My opponent tells you where he's from. I'm going to tell you what I'm for.''
Several delegates at the Republican convention said they were disappointed at first when Giuliani dropped out of the race. As the nation's most prominent mayor, an outsized character with media savvy and debating skills, he seemed a strong rival to Clinton. By contrast, Lazio has such an eager manner and a boyish face - he's 42 but looks 10 years younger - some wonder if he's really ''senatorial.''
But last week, many were warming up to Lazio as possibly the better ''giant-killer.'' First, he lacks the mayor's abrasive personality and his roots in New York City, which many upstaters see as hardly less foreign than Arkansas or Illinois. Second, in the post-Cold War age, when ''senator-statesmen'' are nearly extinct, it may not be a disadvantage to run as an ordinary fellow.
