OS ANGELES - A confident George W. Bush campaigned in California, appeared on ''The Tonight Show,'' and hoped to wrap up the nomination in today's 13 Republican Super Tuesday contests. Republican rival John McCain, needing a sweep of five New England states and a strong showing at least in New York to remain politically viable, told Californians the primaries are still too volatile to predict.
The more subdued Democratic race focused on the vital battleground of New York. Vice President Al Gore, appearing to be ahead in all 15 states (plus American Samoa) with Democratic contests, ignored his opponent Bill Bradley and attacked Bush's health care record. Bradley, the former New York Knick and former New Jersey senator, acknowledged that he needs to ''win a couple of states'' to avoid being forced out of the race.
With a final, furious round of campaigning, the four main presidential candidates headed toward today's coast-to-coast vote, which could effectively decide the Republican and Democratic nominations. The Republican race held the most suspense. The wild ride of the last five weeks, in which McCain barreled out of the New Hampshire primary with a 19-point victory and engaged in a topsy-turvy campaign against Bush, potentially could end today or be given new life if McCain pulls yet another upset.
''There has not been one primary yet that has met expectations,'' McCain said yesterday aboard his campaign bus. ''I think there are going to be a lot of surprises tomorrow, either way. It is just too volatile.''
In Massachusetts, the polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Secretary of State William Galvin expects a record turnout. Four other New England states are also holding primaries: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine. Other Super Tuesday primaries stretch from Georgia to Ohio to Missouri to California.
There are 613 Republican delegates and 1,315 Democratic delegates at stake, in each case more than half the number needed for nomination.
According to the polls, Gore is in a strong position to sweep every primary today, leaving Bradley with no victories after a year of campaigning. Despite the strong promise Bradley once showed, his campaign aides are now making plans for a dignified withdrawal later this week.
Bradley ''has just not made a convincing case for change,'' said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior associate at the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate School. ''The spark that was there at the beginning is not there now.''
The Republican race focused yesterday on California, which has unusual party rules that favor Bush. Any registered voter can cast a ballot for a Republican candidate, but only the ballots of registered GOP voters count toward delegate selection. The polls show Bush far ahead among Republican voters, meaning he is likely to gain the winner-take-all 162 delegates. McCain spent the day campaigning here hoping for a moral victory in the ''beauty contest'' vote by winning the popular vote, which McCain hopes would support his contention that he is the ''electable'' candidate who could win in November.
McCain aides said their best hope today is to sweep five New England states, New York, and make a strong showing or even an upset in Ohio, along with the beauty contest win in California. But even under that scenario, McCain would face an uphill fight, with contests next week dominated by Southern states where Bush is strongest.
McCain, whose signature issue is campaign finance, continued to denounce Bush for his association with two Texas brothers, Sam and Charles Wyly, who have spent an estimated $2.5 million on ads that attack McCain's environmental record.
McCain said the advertisements violate the spirit of campaign finance law and was confident voters would see that. The campaign filed a complaint yesterday about the ads with the Federal Election Commission.
The ads emboldened McCain to revive one of his most controversial charges, that Bush is like President Clinton. McCain withdrew an ad comparing Bush to Clinton during the South Carolina primary after receiving much criticism and vowed to stop running negative ads. But yesterday, McCain himself did not hold back.
''It's so Clinton-esque it's scary - raise the soft money, run the attack ads,'' McCain said.
Though he was running behind in most recent polls, the Arizona senator said he had few regrets about the campaign he has run to date.
Asked whether he thought last week's speech in Virginia Beach, Va., criticizing Christian conservatives Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell might hurt him at the polls today, he said it would not.
''We had to do that,'' McCain said. ''You had to say it before the [Virginia] primary. If we had said it after the primary, then you're not legitimately giving your criticism and your vision for the party.''
For his part, Bush remained confident, reminding reporters that McCain had hurt himself previously in South Carolina by comparing him to Clinton.
''It's going to backfire again,'' Bush said.
Bush set his sights on Gore, who echoed McCain's criticism of the enviromental ads. Bush accused Gore of having ''amnesia,'' forgetting his own fund-raising at a Buddhist temple in California during the last presidential election.
''This is an administration that has violated every campaign finance law, it seems like, on the book,'' Bush said, smiling broadly. ''I'm looking forward to running against Vice President Gore. It's going to be a campaign where the man has got amnesia. He seems to have forgotten what the last seven years have been like, and I am going to remind America.''
Gore, meanwhile, acted as if he was ready to meet Bush in the general election, ignoring Bradley as he campaigned in New York City, where he spent part of the day wooing Jewish voters, health care professionals, and gays and lesbians.
At the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, Gore began his broadside against Bush by saying, ''Texas now ranks 49th in health care for children'' and last for health care coverage for women.
''That includes insurance for women suffering from breast cancer,'' Gore said, in a reference to the ongoing dispute between Bush and McCain, who has complained that Bush has distorted his record on funding for breast cancer research.
''Fifty out of 50. That's dead last,'' Gore said.
Bradley, meanwhile, was hoping for a last-minute political comeback to rival his days as a star with the New York Knicks.
Bradley began his day greeting commuters coming off the Staten Island Ferry, then gave a pep talk to students at a high school in the Bronx. He visited with voters in suburban Westchester County and in Brooklyn, and ended his day with a rally at Manhattan's Bryant Park.
Bradley said his best hopes to derail Gore are in Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Missouri, Maryland, and New York.
''I don't think there is any magic number, but I do think we have to win a couple of states,'' Bradley said.
Some of the commuters that stepped off the ferry from Staten Island, the most Republican of New York's five boroughs, grumbled at having to make their way past Bradley and his entourage. Others wished him well.
The story of the 2000 primary season, when it comes to a close, will probably center on the impact of New Hampshire, and the ability of the front-runners to weather tough times in the first primary state.
''Everything that happened afterward on both sides was determined by what happened in New Hampshire,'' said Dayton Duncan, the author of ''Grassroots,'' about the 1988 Granite State primary.
''The fact this was a bitter and protracted Republican race, more than anyone expected, was because of McCain's success in New Hampshire,'' Duncan said.
It also squashed any hopes Bradley had of receiving attention after New Hampshire. Gore's own New Hampshire crisis happened last fall, months before primary day, when Bradley drew even with him in the polls. Ultimately, the vice president won the New Hampshire primary by four points, enabling him to retain the front-runner title during the following monthlong period without Democratic contests.
The next round of primaries comes March 10, with contests in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. On March 14, primaries will be held in six states, including Florida and Texas, states both led by governors named Bush.
Globe Staff writers John Aloysius Farrell, traveling with Bradley; Anne E. Kornblut, traveling with Bush; Susan Milligan, traveling with Gore; and Yvonne Abraham, traveling with McCain, contributed to this report.
