By Tina Cassidy, Globe Staff, 2/25/2000

assachusetts is McCain country, as a new Boston Globe poll makes resoundingly clear.

Rating GOP candidates Views of Massachusetts voters likely to vote in the GOP presidential primary show McCain overwhelms Bush in Massachusetts. GEORGE W. BUSH 15 39 11 17 16 JOHN MCCAIN 37 45 9 5 2   Extremely favorable   Favorable   Don't know   Unfavorable   Extremely unfavorable SOURCE: Boston Globe poll taken Feb. 21-23. Margin of error is +/-5 percentage points. Note: figures don't add up to 100% because of rounding.

The Arizona senator would crush Texas Governor George W. Bush by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, 59 percent to 32 percent, drawing strong support from registered Republicans - a constituency that has tended to favor Bush in recent primaries - and the overwhelming backing of independent voters who expect to vote in the GOP primary.

Indeed, McCain sweeps every demographic category in the poll - young and old, rich and poor, conservative and liberal, men and women.

And his personal popularity among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents is extraordinary. Eighty-two percent of those polled viewed him favorably, while only 7 percent took an unfavorable view.

Bush is also popular, but by more mortal margins: 54 percent favorable, 33 percent unfavorable.

''Massachusetts Republicans are very different from Republicans in the rest of the country,'' said Gerry Chervinsky, a pollster with KRC Communications Research, which conducted the telephone survey. ''They're much more moderate. They're far more moderate than Southern Republicans. They're certainly more moderate than Midwestern Republicans. And Massachusetts Republicans are overwhelmingly prochoice.''

The third candidate in the GOP field, former Ambassador Alan Keyes, received the support of 4 percent of those in the Globe poll sample of 400 likely voters. Five percent described themselves as still undecided about whom to vote for in the March 7 primary.

The survey, conducted between Feb. 21 and Feb. 23, has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

McCain's strong pull among registered Republicans here stands in sharp contrast to recent results from Michigan and South Carolina, where Bush dominated among GOP voters and McCain relied on independents and Democrats for his core support. In Michigan, that was sufficient to give McCain a win; in South Carolina, the flood of Republican votes carried Bush to victory.

In the New Hampshire primary, where McCain trounced Bush by a 19 percent margin, he ran ahead of Bush among registered Republicans, according to exit polls.

McCain's huge popularity here comes even though he is more conservative on many issues than many Massachusetts Republicans. One clear example is abortion, where the majority of the state GOP favors abortion rights, as do the party's leading office holders: Governor Paul Cellucci and Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift.

Both Bush and McCain oppose abortion, though the senator has drawn criticism from religious conservatives in other states for seeming less emphatic on the issue. At one point in the campaign, McCain said he would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade because it would force women to have ''illegal and dangerous operations.'' And during a swing through New Hampshire, he told reporters that if his teenage daughter got pregnant ''the final decision'' about whether to terminate ''would be made by [her].''

In both instances, McCain later said he misspoke.

The Globe poll found that interest in this presidential race is centered more on the personality and character of the candidates than on any overriding issue.

Asked to list their greatest concerns, 29 percent of likely GOP primary voters polled named health insurance, and 14 percent said taxes. Guns, drugs, crime, and the federal budget deficit, issues that have been at the forefront in other recent presidential elections, barely resonated at 1 percent each.

McCain is not the only thing surging in Massachusetts.

So is interest in the presidential race: About half of those polled said they are more interested in the 2000 campaign than they have been in other elections.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin says nearly 30,000 voters have switched their registration in time for the GOP primary. The biggest crossovers were Democrats becoming unenrolled, which would allow them to cast ballots in the March 7 Republican contest. Another 7,000 Democrats and independents chose to become members of the GOP.

Galvin said it was the first significant shift since 1990, when Republican William F. Weld faced Democrat John Silber in the gubernatorial race and each was able to attract voters from opposing parties.

There has also been a surge in new voter registrations.

''My biggest concern right now is printing enough ballots,'' Galvin said. ''I'm pleased there's interest. It's the whole point in an election, to have people participate.''

Vice President Al Gore drew a 50 percent unfavorable rating, with another 25 percent saying they had no opinion of him despite holding the office for the last seven years. (President Clinton, meanwhile, has a 64 percent unfavorability rating among the GOP primary voters, with most of those leaning toward the ''extremely unfavorable'' end of the spectrum.)

Gore's Democratic primary rival Bill Bradley fares somewhat better, with favorable and unfavorable ratings nearly tied at 36 percent and 37 percent, respectively. The rest of those polled offered no opinion of the former New Jersey senator.