ONCORD, N.H. - He may have promised to avoid negative campaigning, but Senator John McCain came extremely close to directly criticizing Texas Governor George W. Bush yesterday.
At issue was McCain's place on New York's GOP primary ballot. Under state party rules, candidates must collect 20,000 signatures from party members in each of the state's 31 congressional districts, to qualify for the ballot.
For Bush, who has the support of most high-placed New York Republicans, this was not a problem. McCain, who filed a suit challenging the ballot access rules in December, also collected signatures and many more than the required 20,000. But now, those signatures are being challenged, and McCain has accused the challengers of using ''Stalinist'' tactics.
McCain blames New York Governor George E. Pataki, state GOP chairman William Powers, and, indirectly, his chief opponent, Bush. Bush's supporters broke a pledge not to challenge the Arizona senator's right to be on the ballot, McCain said yesterday, and Bush should call them off, ''out of fairness.''
''I'm asking Governor Bush to tell his subordinates, Governor Pataki and Bill Powers, to do what they said they would do, which is not challenge our petitions and let us be on the ballot, because that's only fair,'' McCain said after giving a speech to the New Hampshire legislature.
He said he was irritated by the situation.
''Look, the Berlin Wall came down,'' McCain said. ''Let's not have the kind of Stalinist politics that the state Republican Party of New York has been practicing. Everybody knows I'm a legitimate candidate. Don't try to use the muscle of the New York Republican Party and its apparatchiks to knock us off the ballot.''
McCain said he would not behave the same way if his and Bush's positions were reversed.
''I would never consider - never consider - allowing any supporter of mine to challenge the right of Governor Bush to be on the ballot in all 50 states,'' he said.
But Bush said yesterday he would let the New York Republicans make their own decisions on McCain's petitions.
''I think it is important for all of us to play by the same rules,'' Bush told reporters in Portsmouth, N.H. ''It's a process to encourage grass-roots participation, and I am confident that Chairman Powers will run the party in a way that's fair for everyone. ... What's fair is that we all play by the same rules.''
Bush campaign officials said this is a local issue and the New York GOP is within its rights to do what it wants. The campaign pointed out that New York is not the only state with strict rules to get on the primary ballot, pointing to Virginia and several other states.
In McCain's State House speech, which focused mostly on his wish to end pork barrel spending, he announced his intention to appoint a Cabinet-level official to serve as a ''reform czar, to help me implement the changes in the institutions of government we must make if we are to restore a government of, by, and for the American people as intended by our Founding Fathers.''
Tina Cassidy and Anne E. Kornblut of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
