XETER, N.H. - Senator John McCain's campaign has become an entirely different creature this week.
With the all-important primary in view, and dozens of media organizations demanding their shots at the candidate, the hitherto scrappy, insurgent, and slightly chaotic operation, a characterization McCain and his aides have taken enormous pride in, has suddenly become more orderly - polished, even.
The candidate has even allowed himself rare expressions of confidence about Tuesday's results, the mantle of insurgency occasionally gaping to reveal something more like regency.
''He took the whole day off today,'' a bemused McCain said of his chief rival, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, on Thursday. ''I was surprised he took the day off today.''
But there is renewed caution. With four days to go before the vote on which McCain has staked his bid for the presidential nomination, there is less time to make up for mistakes, to undo the kind of damage done by his inconsistent statements on abortion earlier in the week. So McCain and his aides are trying very hard not to get into trouble.
That is partly because he is being watched by far more people now. Hordes of additional reporters descended upon the campaign a few days ago, and these days, the press corps and the campaign workers travel in a three-bus convoy.
The back of the bus where reporters were used to cramming into circulation-stopping positions just inches from the candidate, is now inadequate for the task. McCain and the news media have moved up front, where there is more room, not just for them, but also for several of the senator's advisers, allowing them to monitor the candidate's rolling news conferences more closely.
There are other hallmarks of glossier operations: McCain actually held a photo-op at a Newington factory Thursday morning and another at the American Independence Museum in Exeter yesterday. Now, McCain's town hall meetings are bigger productions: Before and after he gets on stage, John Fogerty's ''Center Field'' blasts from speakers: ''Put me in, coach/ I'm ready to play today,'' goes the song.
This McCain is unrattled by the Bush campaign and whatever endorsements he might have picked up lately. Former New Hampshire governor John Sununu's endorsement yesterday of the Texas governor? No problem. Endorsements don't concern him, McCain said. Sununu's late arrival was a sign that ''the establishment is desperate,'' he said.
Perhaps Sununu simply thought he was backing a winner, a reporter said to McCain.
''Maybe that's why he waited until four days before the primary,'' McCain quipped.
McCain still asserts his underdog status, but at some of his many town hall meetings, McCain has allowed himself some confidence. ''I'm very enthusiastic and confident about how we're going to do on Tuesday,'' McCain said.
McCain has clung to a lead in most recent polls, though a new Globe/WBZ tracking poll suggests that Bush may be gaining ground in a race which is essentially deadlocked. Previous New Hampshire primaries have shown what looks good on the Friday before the votes are cast can go horribly wrong before Tuesday, and there is little time to correct mistakes in between.
So lately, when McCain has given voice to those staples of his stump speech that have led pundits and his opponents to characterize him as too moderate a Republican, he has taken care to underline his conservative credentials. He now takes care to mention Ronald Reagan in the same breath when he invokes John F. Kennedy.
''My friends,'' he told an audience at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow on Thursday night, ''I am a proud conservative Republican. I have a 17-year record as a conservative Republican. But Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan had something in common: They could inspire a crowd to causes greater than their own self-interest.''
An important precedent is worrying McCain and his aides. In 1988, Vice President George Bush's campaign sprung its last-minute ''Senator Straddle'' attack ad against Senator Bob Dole in New Hampshire, catching Dole off guard and doing irreparable damage.
They have heard rumors that President Bush's son plans to air similarly negative television spots, using McCain's words from the debate Wednesday night to liken him to President Clinton.
McCain and his aides have been busy launching a preemptive strike against that possibility in the last two days.
''My question is, will the Bush campaign go negative?'' was McCain's first, unsolicited comment when he took his seat among reporters Thursday night.
''They're grasping at straws,'' McCain strategist Mike Murphy said. ''It's an incredibly dumb argument that nobody's going to believe. That's what they've sunk to?''
His campaign issued a news release calling on Bush to keep to his handshake agreement to forgo negative campaigning.
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a spot yesterday.
''We continue to note Senator McCain's admission that President Clinton's tax plan resembles Senator McCain's tax plan,'' he said.
But McCain continued to maintain yesterday that Clinton had not been a model of his, but an imitator.
Meanwhile, there are bumps along this now-short road that are beyond strategy. At a town hall meeting at Exeter Area High School yesterday, McCain wrapped up his introductory speech by mistakenly referring to New Hampshire as Massachusetts, eliciting jeers from his large audience. No pre-emptive strike could have helped him there.
