LEXANDRIA, Va. - As Senator John S. McCain spoke to a noisy crowd of about 500 outside his modest campaign headquarters yesterday, a dozen campaign staff members stood on the roof of the squat, gray-brick building, looking down with huge grins and great satisfaction.
They have good reason to smile. McCain yesterday picked up the endorsements of the New York Post and the Baltimore Sun. With the exception of a recent California poll that showed McCain trailing Bush in California by 25 points (which aides said they simply do not believe), things have been going quite well for the senator's staff.
Trounced in South Carolina, McCain's aides were able to turn their sound defeat into a millstone to toss around Texas Governor George W. Bush's neck: Political strategist John Weaver was confident Bush's shift to the right in the Palmetto State would alienate voters in more moderate states like Michigan.
And to make sure of that, the McCain campaign called Catholic voters in Michigan to let them know of Bush's visit to Bob Jones University, which has a reputation for intolerance. The voters McCain did not reach soon heard about the visit to the university from Bush himself, who loudly proclaimed his outrage over the calls, doing McCain another unintended service.
And McCain won Michigan, a significant setback for Bush. Yesterday, in an attempt to sta nch the bleeding, the governor issued a letter of apology for his appearance at Bob Jones University. But McCain will probably continue to hammer the issue in the future.
While Bush was putting his regrets into writing, McCain, who has finessed questions over his initial denial of the Michigan calls, appeared before large and adoring crowds over the weekend.
''I'm not sure we're going to win on Tuesday,'' McCain said at the rally, speaking of Virginia's primary tomorrow, where Bush is still strongly favored to win. ''But I am sure of this: Eventually, we're going to win this nomination.''
Meanwhile, McCain said he would not participate in a debate in California Thursday, as he originally planned. The debate has already been advertised on television. That decision has spawned yet another acrimonious exchange between the campaigns.
''They invited us both, we accepted, Bush declined. Then, the Bush campaign started losing more primaries, getting desperate, and they came back and accepted. We had already made other plans for that evening,'' said McCain spokesman Todd Harris. ''We're not going to have the fact that the Bush campaign is flailing dictate our schedule.''
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush had not given the debate sponsors an answer. ''We were trying to juggle our options,'' he said.
In Ohio on Saturday, thousands of supporters turned out to see McCain at a market and a university, and in the evening at a Cincinnati bookstore, where 1,000 copies of his book flew off the shelves, and where he stayed until about 8 p.m. to sign every last one of them.
Two hours late for his flight to Virginia, McCain arrived at the airport at about 8:30 p.m. to yet another adoring crowd of 800, who had waited patiently on the tarmac to see him, and screamed for him when he arrived.
And many of the people in these crowds appear not to care about policy or ideology. Sure, McCain is pushing his Republican credentials with more energy than ever lately. But to many of his supporters, all of that is irrelevant. Character is the thing, they say.
That incenses Christian Adams, a lawyer from Alexandria who was at McCain's rally yesterday to protest the senator's ''hypocrisy.'' Adams was angered that McCain, who rails against special interests, was pushing for more flights at nearby Reagan Washington National Airport, a move that would benefit America West Airlines, a campaign contributor. McCain has said he favors the flights in the interest of competition, a view Adams does not buy.
But for many of the Virginians in the crowd, who had waited over an hour in a chilly drizzle to see McCain, such issues are irrelevant. Ask voters what they think of McCain's stance on the airport, which the Bush campaign is also trying to use against the senator, and they will quote a line McCain himself uses all the time, about telling the truth even if it's not what voters want to hear.
''I'd prefer less flights,'' said Blake Thomson, an independent who said he will vote for McCain tomorrow. ''But like he says, you may not agree with him, but he's honest.''
''I think people are behind him because of character,'' said Robert Stropky. ''I don't think the issues are as important for this campaign.'' Stropky said he didn't hold the airport issue against McCain, and thought it had no place in a national election.
At rallies like this one, crowds invariably respond most enthusiastically to McCain's claims that he will restore integrity to the White House. Yesterday, that claim was delivered by his wife, Cindy, who rarely speaks publicly.
''You can count on John and I no matter what to represent you with the kind of dignity and the kind of honor you expect,'' she said.
