EDONA, Ariz. - The Straight Talk fell silent yesterday.
John McCain, the combative Arizona senator who gave Texas Governor George W. Bush a serious run for his ample money, and who at times looked set to change the way political campaigns were run in this country, has given up his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
McCain, who stood atop a cliff against a spectacular backdrop of red rocks, snow-covered ridges, and white clouds stretched against a huge blue sky, was not the beaming, wise-cracking candidate of yore, the man who roared past Bush in New Hampshire and then ran headlong into Republican reality.
He and his always garrulous aides were somber yesterday as the senator delivered a speech that held none of his usual humor and energy, but which echoed the feistiness that endeared him to millions of voters - particularly voters outside his own party.
''I hoped our campaign would be a force for change in the Republican Party,'' he said. ''And I believe we have indeed set a course that will ultimately prevail in making our party as big as the country we serve.''
He said the support he had received from voters has ''ignited the cause of reform, a cause far greater and more important than the ambitions of any single candidate.''
McCain said, as he has many times, that he loves his party and considers it his home. But he was not about to return to the bosom of the GOP unconditionally, vowing to continue his push for campaign finance reform, an issue that animated his candidacy.
''Should our party ever abandon this principle,'' he warned, ''the American people will rightly abandon us, and we will surely slip into the mists of history, deserving the allegiance of none.''
McCain sounded his typical populist notes, though more softly than usual. He vowed to continue his ''crusade'' to ''give government back to the people,'' and overcome walls to greater voter participation, ''be they walls of cynicism, or intolerance, or walls raised by a self-interested elite who would exclude your voice from the highest councils of our government.''
McCain tried to marry Bush to that elite during this campaign, and among the voters who turned out for his town hall meetings and rallies, he succeeded. Over and over they voiced their suspicion of the endorsement-heavy, richly financed governor and their admiration for McCain, the former prisoner of war who was willing to take on the establishment. That the senator had spent 17 years in Washington barely registered with these voters.
But as the senator himself said yesterday, he did not convince enough Republicans of his worthiness, as Bush had.
McCain did not endorse the governor yesterday, nor was he expected to. That will come later, if at all.
McCain has no plans to release the delegates he has won to Bush, his campaign manager Rick Davis said later. Instead, he will, with his delegates, press the party at its national convention this summer to move toward his reformist agenda.
Davis said that capturing the McCain constituency is essential if the GOP is to win in November. ''The party needs John McCain to broaden its base and only if it broadens its base can it beat Al Gore.''
McCain, who is headed off for a vacation (''Somewhere cell phones don't work,'' Davis said) ended the day by hosting a barbeque for his entourage, but aides warned the press that the entire affair was to be off the record.
Those three words were always anathema to the McCain campaign. Nothing the senator said was off limits, though aides might have sometimes wanted it otherwise. Occasionally, when McCain was veering into dangerous territory, they would blush, or shoot each other panicked looks, or mouth the words ''change the subject'' over and over.
It rarely worked. That was one of his candidacy's strengths, and one of its frailties. His long days with reporters allowed McCain to edit himself constantly, revising and refining his positions as the questions continued, each leg of his long and frequent journeys a chance to set the record straight or paint a subtler picture.
But some things could not be fixed no matter how long the bus ride. The antiabortion senator, already under fire from antiabortion groups, had said that if his daughter got pregnant, the choice of whether to have an abortion would be hers. Even a strong statement to the contrary later in the day did nothing to erase the effect of that admission on a constituency worried about his reliability on the abortion issue.
The same was true of the senator's characterization of Christian conservatives Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as ''forces of evil,'' which McCain also tried to fix with a strong statement and an apology. Just joking, he said. But the damage was done.
Back in New Hampshire, before his spectacular victory there, his South Carolina defeat, the negative advertising, the backbiting about push-polls, the speech denouncing Robertson and Falwell, and his Super Tuesday drubbing, McCain was asked whether he thought his wide-open ways would change the way people campaigned for office.
He said he didn't know. But he was certain of one thing: If he won, people would think his let-it-all-hang-out strategy was a stroke of genius, and it would be widely imitated.
Though he did not win, aides say they would do it all the same way again, with only a few, toothpaste-back-in-the-tube modifications.
McCain's departure was deeply dislocating for those closest to him. Political director John Weaver, the tall Texan with the easy laugh who guided many of the campaign's tactical decisions, says this is his last campaign ever. He will move from San Antonio to New Hampshire in the summer with his wife, who is ill, and his young daughter. He says he has a great deal to make up to them after so many months on the road.
Long-suffering, chain-smoking bus driver Greg Price will take the storied Straight Talk Express back to Ohio, where he works for a transportation company with a fleet of luxury coaches. He will peel the familiar `McCain 2000' decals off its white sides and go back to driving around celebrities like Aretha Franklin who, he says, won't fly anywhere.
Few campaign workers have plans beyond their upcoming vacations, however, including spokesman Howard Opinsky, who tossed his pager high off the cliff after yesterday's speech, and to loud applause. He was done.
On Saturday, McCain, who is headed back to the Senate and probably a much more prominent role in the GOP, was asked what he would do if he lost on Super Tuesday. His response was typical.
''Actually I would contemplate suicide,'' he quipped. ''We have some razor blades stashed in the back room.'' He made slashing sounds and gestured toward his wrists.
''Or, [fellow POW Orson Swindle] and I are thinking in fact of going back and establishing residence in Hanoi,'' McCain said. ''They know us there. They don't bother us there. Good food, three squares, and a flop. We're always under watchful care.''
