MHERST - It isn't about his leanings or his stands. It isn't about Social Security, taxes, or even campaign finance reform. With John McCain, the pull is more visceral, emotional. Almost wishful.
At least, that's the view from the college-town coffee shop where Christopher McDonald, a doctoral student in social justice education, explains his unlikely feelings about the presidential race. McDonald, 30, is no conservative. He hates McCain's vote against a bill to ban job discrimination against gay people. And yet ...
''I would vote for John McCain,'' he said. ''I think he could be engaged. I think he would listen to people. I really do.''
So, apparently, do thousands of other Massachusetts voters. As Tuesday's primary approaches, an informal, unofficial, unscientific sampling of the state's residents confirms what the formal, scientific polls are saying. There are voters moved by Gore, Bradley, Bush, McCain, and None of the Above. There are voters committed to the issues, bound to support a candidate who's for abortion rights or against them.
But a wide range of voters, across age, race, and party lines, is moved not by facts but by feelings. And many of them say McCain has a hard-to-articulate appeal - even if logic suggests they should despise him.
Perhaps that's not so strange in Massachusetts, where independents outnumber Democrats and Republicans, and Yankee individualists love to boast that they ''vote for the man, not the party.'' Still, some lifelong Democrats seem genuinely surprised that they're drawn to McCain.
Larry Scott, 34, an auto mechanic in Grafton who unlike McCain opposes the death penalty, said he can't explain the candidate's attraction; it's ''just the way he is.'' Henry O'Mally, 53, an odd-jobs man at a Dorchester restaurant, wants McCain because he figures ''we don't need another puppet.''
And a weathered Vietnam vet, resting on the steps of the New Bedford Library after a five-day fishing trip, mused on the candidates and came up with this explanation:
''If I was back in the service again, I would take McCain in the foxhole with me. He's the only one I'd trust. The others would all run.''
Never mind the issue briefings and position papers. It's the fuzzy, personal qualities - perceptions on bravery, forthrightness, spunk - that are far more likely to decide an election. Despite an avalanche of media coverage, many voters aren't paying more than glancing attention to the campaign. Less than a week before the primary, more than a few admit they still need to figure out who's running. Many say they need to learn more about the issues.
But some say the details scarcely matter, anyway; a presidential race is only partly about platform. You're not just checking off a list of ideas from a menu, voters say. You're choosing a person, a personality.
Maybe that isn't so wrong, says Manny Louro, 38, a systems salesman from South Dartmouth who wears a company ring and is inclined to believe that leadership is salesmanship.
''Selling is communicating, communicating effectively,'' Louro said. ''This is all kind of theatrics to a large extent.''
But theatrics can be deceptive, said Peter D'Errico, who teaches legal studies at the University of Massachuetts at Amherst. The notion that McCain is a different sort of politician, he said, is a delusion.
''That's what's so bizarre. Nothing that he actually says, none of those involve any real change,'' D'Errico said. ''He's business as usual. Reagan is his favorite president. I mean, by God, how does that change anything?''
Still, if McCain doesn't represent a radical departure from the system, he also doesn't represent a close link to it the way front-runners Al Gore and George W. Bush do. Bush still trots out his dad and ever-popular mom on the campaign trail. And as much as Gore tries to distance himself from Bill Clinton's misdeeds, he also benefits from Clinton's broad support.
Larry Singleton, a UMass-Dartmouth education professor, said he favors Gore out of loyalty to Clinton.
''I adore President Clinton's civil rights accomplishments,'' Singleton said. ''He has done a lot for civil rights for blacks.''
But June Long, 73, of Sandwich, said the last eight years have left her disenchanted. ''The moral fabric of this country has gone down,'' she said as she watched her husband play cards. ''Taxes should be at a standard where people can afford to pay. A mother should be home for awhile. They can't anymore. Kids are latch-key kids today ... It's a lot of little things'' that she figures Bush can fix.
But as the campaign unfolds, the real-life Bush - as opposed to the idealized one - has disappointed many. At Peg's Diner, a tiny Whitinsville cafe where patrons hold court at the counter, owner Peg Gagner says they've been talking a lot about Bush. When the handlers first hawked George W., she said, they made him sound more ... presidential.
''You can never do that. You can't fool people,'' she said while frying a hunk of bacon on her griddle. ''They just figured he was going to be like his father, and he's not his father.''
He's not much of a candidate at all, said Shawn Gunderson, 31, a system engineer from Northampton, who calls Bush ''The Prince of Idiocy.''
''He's just a wind-up toy. He just does what he's told,'' Gunderson said, lounging on a park bench on the Plymouth shore and turning an invisible key.
And Brendan Maher, 24, an Internet worker from Cambridge, had similar complaints about Gore, who he said looks like he ''went to a learn-how-to-speak-in-public seminar and he left after the first class.''
But voters irked by Gore aren't necessarily drawn to Bill Bradley, the would-be Democratic insurgent who has struggled in every state. To Andrea Young, 18, who manages a Worcester baseball-cap store, Bradley's race-relations rhetoric rings hollow: ''Yeah, I played for the Knicks. Yeah, I know where you people come from.''
Michael A. Fiato, 32, who works with teenagers in Lawrence, didn't take a second look at Bradley until he read an article about him in Vibe magazine. But as Bradley surely knows, not everyone reads Vibe. And Peg Gagner blames the candidate for losing the mainstream.
''You need somebody that's going to pound their fist and get your attention,'' she said. The sort of thing McCain has done so well.
So far, the maverick Republican's lead is staggering; a recent University of Massachusetts poll showed him leading Bush, 66-21, among probable voters in the Republican primary. Among likely Democratic primary voters, Gore leads Bradley 54-34.
But ''likely voters'' doesn't mean a lot of people; in Massachusetts, presidential primaries tend to be low-key events. When Clinton faced Dole in 1996, turnout was 14.4 percent.
Election officials say there is unusual interest this year and they have prepared for high participation. But even when turnout reaches record levels, as it did in 1980, 6 out of 10 voters still don't bother.
Already, won't-be voters give a lot of reasons why. Some say they're waiting for the general election. Some say they're too disillusioned. And some say they lack the inclination, or the energy, to think about campaigns. Even a roving news event like Hurricane McCain, after all, can't compete with the little tempests of everyday life.
So said Denise Esposito of Pembroke, who wheels two infants in her stroller, and admits she hasn't paid much attention to the race - or watched any debates.
''I don't have a whole heck of a lot of time,'' she said. ''I watch `Teletubbies'.''
