"I'm a proud conservative Republican. I am a Reagan Republican. Have no doubt about that," McCain told the Rotary Club here Wednesday.

"I have to convince and tell our Republican Party establishment: It's great over here," he added. "Come on in. Join us. Join us in this effort to be an inclusive party. Join us in this effort to reach out."

After winning handily in his home state and beating Bush in Michigan, McCain turned his attention to upcoming battlegrounds on the West Coast. He cast the nomination fight as a choice between an inclusive reformer who can win the White House and a $70 million candidate who appeals mostly to the establishment.

"The great thing about this victory yesterday was that we have proven -- I hope to my Republican friends and I believe to most Americans -- that we can reassemble a coalition" of bipartisan support in the tradition of President Reagan, McCain told an overflow crowd at Gonzaga University in Spokane.

"This is a crusade. Get with it, and you will enjoy the ride," he added.

Here in Washington, a McCain win on Tuesday would only guarantee him 12 of the state's 37 delegate votes. The rest would be picked by a caucus March 7.

But McCain's effort is more about momentum than math, and on Wednesday he campaigned in high spirits.

"Everyone can come onboard this train because we're leaving the station, my friends," McCain said.

But in epic, pop-culture terms, McCain returned to a metaphor he has used often to acknowledge he had not won the nomination yet.

"We're still Luke Skywalker trying to escape from the Death Star," he said.

McCain is focusing for the next two days on Washington, which votes on Tuesday, and California, whose residents go to the polls on "Super Tuesday" a week later. The Arizona senator also planned some down time Thursday with a 24-hour rest at his vacation home in Sedona before heading to San Diego on Friday.

From there, his schedule brings him east to Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, then back to Washington, D.C. through Sunday. No longer planning to cede Virginia to Bush, McCain planned a town hall meeting in the Washington suburbs on Monday before swinging through Atlanta on his way back to California.

Throughout the odyssey, McCain plans to concentrate on his signature issue, campaign finance reform, and on such other matters as his intent to use federal budget surpluses to pay off the national debt.

The candidate plans to resist being drawn into distracting squabbles with Bush over whose campaign made which negative calls to voters, one senior aide said. A day earlier, McCain's aides were caught denying that the campaign was making such calls to Catholic voters, until confronted with a transcript provided by the Bush campaign.

McCain early Wednesday said he "had nothing to do" with those calls, then defended their accuracy. "That was an accurate phone call. I didn't call anyone a bigot," he told reporters.

The days of engaging in distracting yes-no haggling "are over," senior adviser Mike Murphy said later. "The reform message is very powerful, combined with the message of fiscal conservatism."

For the second time in the same speech, McCain declared his conservatism. And, without being asked, he explained his sponsorship in 1998 of an anti-tobacco bill that made him an enemy of many on the right.

"I am a strong loyal conservative Republican," McCain said. "There are times when you have to stand up for what you believe in."