OS ANGELES - In the beginning, it was so much simpler, stripped-down, fun.
All over New Hampshire, people knew what Senator John McCain stood for, and it was not about ideology or policy or legislation. Voters said the same thing over and over again. He is honest. He is brave. He has integrity. He has my vote.
Campaign finance reform? Very important, they all said. But more important, he has the guts to take it on.
At more than 100 town hall meetings in New Hampshire, McCain had shaken hands and given that rigid two-thumbs-up to so many of the state's voters. They had seen him for themselves, squeezed his shoulder, gotten the wink.
Since then, however, there have been vast tracts of ground to cover, and McCain has not been able to get to nearly as many people in person. He found himself forced to rely on mass political appeal, and on television, where money counts for more, and where he can seem stiff and awkward.
That victory night in New Hampshire, with McCain so awed by his own achievement that he was almost subdued, seemed a distant memory as McCain took the podium last night and conceded that Bush had had distinctly the better of the critical run of Super Tuesday primaries. Five weeks ago, McCain's media strategist Mike Murphy seemed right when he said ''inevitability died in the snows of New Hampshire tonight.'' Now the snow has melted and after five weeks of tumultuous campaigning, things seem much the same as they were before his campaign took off.
Except that the sense of possibility is largely gone.
Last night, after the campaign's worst fears were realized, all of the usual McCain campaign staples were in evidence. The giant George Patton flag behind the stage. The chest-thumping disco music, blaring out ''Whoomp! There it is'' and ''I Like it Like That,'' and the theme from ''Rocky.'' The red, white and blue pom-poms, and the devotees shaking them.
But not everybody was dancing and grinning this time. During the day, when it began to be clear that the pollsters had been right, McCain's aides, usually ebullient and talkative, closed ranks, heading off to lunch together, politely edging away from reporters. About 20 minutes before McCain appeared, a bus disgorged campaign workers, some of whom tried hard to be cheery, dancing towards the room where supporters were gathered.
And when the candidate himself appeared, on the familiar bus, he was surrounded not by reporters, but by his family and closest advisers, some of whom were grim-faced. McCain, whom aides usually have to drag away from his crowds, was clearly eager to get in and out of the small mall where delivered his speech against the backdrop of that flag. He seemed to be trying hard to smile through supporters' applause, but it was more gentle than his usual two-thumbs-up smile, where his whole face strains and he bares all of his teeth.
He rocked up on his toes, gesturing for the applause to stop, so that he could get through a speech which left all of his options open but hinted strongly that it was time to pause and reconsider - reconsider the campaign, but not the cause.
''We will never give up this mission, my friends,'' he said, adding that he remains determined to see the GOP ''recover its purpose to be as big as the country we serve.''
''That is the purpose of our campaign and as I said, I have no intention of ever surrendering it.''
It was the sort of passionate promise that has galvanized McCain's supporters. But this was also a campaign sustained by powerful symbolism and inside jokes, born in the months leading up to McCain's spectacular New Hampshire victory, and sustained in the rockier terrain that followed.
There was the bus, of course. In the last month, awe-struck fans started climbing aboard it at rallies to snap pictures by his red swivel seat, though McCain was nowhere near it. A state trooper pulled it over in South Carolina, jeopardizing his job because he thought the senator might be on board, and he wanted to meet him.
The one-liners had traveled almost as many miles as the so-called Straight Talk Express. The ''I want Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Vegetarians'' line spawned a legion of wiseacre signs at rallies. Ones that said ''Vegetarians for John McCain'' appeared first. By yesterday, the vegetarians were joined by Ukrainians, Hippies, Omnivores and Carnivores.
McCain has taken great pleasure in pointing them out.
''By the way, `Soccer Moms for McCain,' McCain said at a rally in San Diego Monday. ''Up in Santa Clara this morning we had `Carnivores for McCain.' In Cleveland we had `Ukrainians for McCain.' I'm telling ya,'' he said, laughing, ''we are assembling a coalition never seen before in the history of American politics.''
That, of course, has been McCain's greatest strength, and one of his biggest weaknesses. Texas Governor George W. Bush has tried to make the senator's broad appeal a liability. McCain's relative weakness among Republican voters in most states has vindicated the governor. And, then another sign appeared, saying something that in an ordinary campaign should have been a given: ''Republicans for McCain.''
In the days before yesterday's primaries, McCain, the kind of man who absorbs a blow and barrels forward, was unusually reflective.
''If you look back, I wish I hadn't done so many things, but I'm glad I did so many other things. Come on, you can't complain and you can't explain. If you do, you diminish what you tried to do. I'm happy. ''
He did allow that there have been other mistakes. Maybe the joking comment about Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell being evil. Maybe his comment to a California newspaper saying he would be unlikely to repeal Roe v. Wade.
''How much would it have to do with my flip remark about evil?'' he ventured. ''How much would it have to do with my statements to the San Francisco Chronicle? How much has to do with all the idiotic things I've said in this campaign?''
But he wasn't going to let those things drive him crazy. He hadn't gotten this far, in his life and in this campaign, by dwelling on things. He had battles to fight.
Last weekend, with two friends of Bush buying $2.5 million worth of advertising to criticize McCain's environmental record, the senator seemed to be seething at times, his usually clenched jaw grinding away as he answered reporters' questions.
But McCain took something from that latest onslaught: a new focus, he said. See? he told audiences everywhere he went. Those advertisments are exactly why he wants campaign finance reform. McCain said Bush had handed his signature issue back to him.
But often it didn't sound like the optimistic message that had so inspired New Hampshire's voters.
McCain aides, who over the weekend seemed angry and dejected at the advertising that may have been their death knell, were at peace yesterday. They were proud of what they had done.
''I couldn't be prouder of what John and the campaign accomplished,'' political director John Weaver said. ''We struck a chord with the American people. There's a hunger in the country for someone like him.''
