WASHINGTON -- For John McCain, it turned out that there was not just a bounce from his landslide in New Hampshire. It's better than that. Instead of the traditional ripple effect that gradually spreads across the country, McCain is surging everywhere. He is also consuming oxygen his would-be counterpart in Democratic Party insurgency politics, Bill Bradley, desperately needs to sustain his assault on Al Gore. But above all, McCain is changing the Republican landscape daily.
That's why, for the embattled Republican establishment, the little-noticed backwater primary on Tuesday in Delaware suddenly looms vital. Admittedly, only the nearly moribund candidacy of Steve Forbes confronts George W. Bush there, with McCain a ballot presence in name only after a decision to treat the place like Iowa in advance of his make-or-break date with South Carolina.
So nearly desperate has Bush's position become since New Hampshire that beating a wounded candidate in a tiny state has become crucial to Bush's hopes of a gradual comeback. In increasing his last-minute investment in Delaware, Bush is betting that Forbes's victory there four years ago is ancient history and that support from Delaware's Republican establishment will be adequate to produce a win.
It had better be. To be beaten in Delaware, or to see a large, come-from-nowhere McCain vote emerge, would be catastrophic. With Bush's aura of inevitability at least temporarily shattered, the minor reality check of a victory in Delaware would give him a breather for his larger regrouping mission.
What continues to be missing from the president-in-waiting is a signal to Republicans around the country that he understands what has happened to him and that he intends to fight for his beliefs just as soon as he can be sure what they are. In place of candor, there has been nothing but denial mixed in with tactical maneuvers whose cumulative impact has been to exa cerbate Bush's problems.
The Bush campaign may be leaking badly right now, but it's still a battleship, meaning it is very hard to turn it quickly. The governor proved that right out of the New Hampshire box in South Carolina, he proved it in the mess he has made of his position in New York state, and he proves it daily with lame experiments in search of the magic label his multitude of consultants and advisers believe could sink McCain with ordinary Republican voters.
The symbol for the ostrich behavior in South Carolina was Dan Quayle, who showed up to endorse Bush his first day there. By then there wasn't a soul left in the Bush campaign who didn't understand that endorsements had become part of the problem the final week in New Hampshire. But instead of lamely noting that the Quayle ''blessing'' had already been scheduled, a more alert campaign would have canceled it.
That goes double for the disaster that has befallen the campaign in New York as a result of its alliance with Governor George Pataki to use the state's ridiculously antidemocratic rules to keep McCain off the ballot in most of the state's congressional districts. A week ago, when a gutsy federal judge signaled his disgust with those rules, the Bush campaign had a brief window of opportunity to get some credit for seeing the legal and moral light and tossing in the towel.
Instead it went through six days of embarrassing confusion before its belated move, which looked like the surrender that it was. The result is that the McCain campaign not only has the same momentum in New York it has earned in South Carolina; it also benefits from a local issue.
The fight there is far from over, but for a candidate with McCain's limited resources facing multiple primaries on March 7, his campaign now has a major cushion in New York - courtesy of Bush.
But nothing shows the Bush campaign in full panic more than its behavior in South Carolina. Bush's chief South Carolina surrogate, David Beasley, who was defeated for reelection last year in the governor's race, said the state would reverse New Hampshire's mistake on Feb. 19, despite the fact that people in the campaign knew that polls showing at best a dead heat were a certainty before the end of the week. One hour Bush would claim the mantle of conservatism (''I am the right'' was the most memorable syntactical monstrosity); at other times Bush was the 50-state, national candidate (allowing McCain to retort that he'd better make that 49); and at still others, Bush was the ''outsider'' and McCain the dreaded ''Washington insider.''
This flailing about with mixed messages is a symptom of the absence of an underlying rationale for this campaign. Bus's campaign money and institutional support, in marked contrast to front-runners past, has nothing to do with hs record, beliefs, or any other ties to him personally. It's strictly business, which makes it an inch deep.
A candid recognition that the ballgame has changed, combined with a statement by Bush of what he represents to voters as opposed to donors and fellow pols, would still help reestablish his position. But until that happens, the wildest ride since Gary Hart's in 1984, only this time by a much more formidable figure, is going to continue.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
