In interviews from Missouri to New Jersey, McCain backers said they admired his Vietnam War record and his promise to scrub the political system.

Many knew little else about the Arizona senator, but that hardly mattered. He has become, in a sense, a political mirage dancing in the eyes of voters thirsting for alternatives after the primaries narrowed their major-party choices to Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

"I can't listen to Gore; he's too boring. I can't vote for Bush; he's too shifty-eyed," said Karen Morely, a hospital administrator eating lunch at a diner in the Detroit suburb of St. Clair Shores. "McCain has got to be better, but I'll probably end up settling for Gore."

"I liked McCain. He came across as honest and down to earth," said Clay Johnson of Joliet, Ill. "I'm looking for that same trait in the ones who are left."

After he left the race with seven primary victories, McCain's supporters became a major target of both Gore and Bush. Mostly independent-minded voters, McCain backers could be pivotal in what is expected to be a tight race.

Recently, for example:

-A month after quitting, the Arizona senator scored about one-fifth of the GOP primary vote in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two key general election states.

-McCain was favored more than Gore and Bush by voters who describe themselves as uncommitted in a hypothetical matchup of congressional candidates.

-McCain still gets major news coverage, as when he campaigned over the weekend for Rudolph Giuliani in the New York Senate race and said in a speech at Columbia University on Monday that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be a star in the Senate but is just too liberal. Candidates nationwide are clamoring for his help this summer.

Seven months before the election, The Associated Press interviewed self-described McCain backers in five states that analysts say could determine the election: Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Amy Schumacher, 25, of St. Clair Shores was sitting on the ledge of a cement planter outside a mall in Macomb County, a swath of blue-collar Detroit suburbs that swing between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. She had purple-tinted sunglasses, fingernails painted in 10 different shades and a coffin-shaped purse.

"He was an original like me, I think," she said of McCain. "He seemed to be his own man."

McCain voters say they plan to take their time deciding on a candidate. And many urged him to withhold his endorsement of the fellow Republican Bush, the Texas governor.

"It would look like he's falling into the political scene," said Mike Wescott, 31, co-owner of the Goal Line bar in East Stroudsburg, Pa. The bar is dimly lit, but every now and then a customer walks in, bathing customers in sunlight and fresh air.

"I would rather see him work in the Senate and campaign for other Republicans rather than standing there shaking hands with Bush," Wescott said.

Mindful of the sentiment, McCain and Bush are tiptoeing toward a reconciliation after their primary battle.

A few self-described McCain supporters said they backed Ross Perot or other third-party candidates in the past.

Greg Glenn, 42, a southern California sand sculptor, said McCain "had a few glitches" but won his support by promising to reform campaign laws. Glenn's latest creation is a 10-foot tall Hollywood scene -- movie star busts and film reels carved from wet sand piled inside the Macomb County mall.

"Unfortunately, I'll have to vote for the Reform Party or otherwise throw away my vote," said Glenn, who has voted for consumer advocate Ralph Nader in the past and may do so again. Few voters mentioned Pat Buchanan, the former GOP candidate running for the Reform Party nomination.

Republican and Democratic strategists are trying to determine how to appeal to McCain voters, many of whom don't have a firm grip on why they supported the senator.

"The excitement that John generated was related mostly to the man he is, rather than any particular issue, so there are a lot of disappointed people," said Republican Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, a Bush backer.

He urged the Texas governor to take a page from McCain's playbook and "submit for America's consideration his own version of campaign finance reform."

Michigan Gov. John Engler and New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman, both Republicans and Bush supporters, said McCain voters are opposed to the establishment and therefore aren't likely to side with the vice president. "They certainly don't embrace what we have now" in Washington, Whitman said.

Barbara Keller, 63, of Old Bridge, N.J., said she had had hoped to vote for McCain because "he was refreshing. He was something different. He has ideas. The other guys are a joke."

Asked her opinion of McCain's tax-cut plan, she replied, "I don't know what he had in mind."

His opposition to abortion? "I don't think I like him on that," she said.

What of his plans for Social Security? "He didn't have a chance to tell us about himself," she replied. A bag of doughnuts in hand, she reached for the door of a bakery and said, "Maybe that's what we liked about him."