Small crowds suit McCain, for now

John McCain spoke to software company workers yesterday during a stop in St. Louis. He will be in New Hampshire today. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

HARRISBURG, Pa. - For more than two months, John McCain's advisers have said they wished the rest of the country were just like New Hampshire: a place where well-informed voters were willing to sit through long, detailed policy conversations and then vote for the candidate who most enjoyed disagreeing with them.

"If it weren't for New Hampshire, I wouldn't be here today," McCain told Steve Duprey, a former chairman of the state's Republican Party, while driving through Ohio before the primary in that state that helped him clinch the nomination last week.

Today, McCain will return to New Hampshire to say "thank you" - he mounted comeback wins in the state's 2000 and 2008 primaries - and to symbolically launch a general election campaign that the Arizona senator has said he hopes to model on his New Hampshire efforts.

McCain's "Straight Talk Express" bus will visit Exeter, which New Hampshire Republicans claim as their party's birthplace. It's also where McCain held two of the 101 town hall meetings - the unpredictable and open-ended sessions where McCain typically invites "any questions, comments, or insults you may have" - that he hosted over nine months of pre-primary campaigning in the state.

"McCain's signature campaign event, these town hall meetings, were uniquely tailored to New Hampshire," said Duprey. "That way of speaking directly with the voters engages them more and they respect his answers."

McCain's accessible style stands him apart from the two remaining Democratic candidates, who reach voters primarily through large rallies where they do not regularly interact with people. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton appeared at an Art Deco concert hall here with 1,763 seats for symphony performances, and at a Philadelphia university athletic facility that can hold nearly 4,000. On Monday, Obama appeared in Mississippi before crowds of 1,700 and 8,500, according to estimates provided by his campaign.

McCain's audiences typically number in the hundreds, evidence of a disparity between the parties in both voter enthusiasm and the resources necessary to hire the field organizers who help build crowds. Yet McCain has tried to elevate his style of direct, intimate communication into a test of character that will distinguish him from a future Democratic rival.

"Americans aren't interested in an election where they are just talked to and not listened to; an election that offers platitudes instead of principles and insults instead of ideas," he told supporters in Dallas after winning the Texas primary on March 4 - and enough delegates to assure him the nomination.

His aides say they intend to challenge their opponent to adopt his method of politicking and regularly subject themselves to questions from voters and reporters. "He wants to keep running the way he has, and he wants the other side to do the same - a big debate on big issues," said adviser Charlie Black.

They acknowledge, however, that what worked in a primary campaign focused on one state - in which most voters are located in a sole media market and reachable within an hour's drive - will not be easily adaptable to a national contest in which McCain has said he intends to compete in all 50 states.

"In New Hampshire, anybody who wanted to personally see John McCain could," said Duprey. "On the national stage, that's not possible - and the campaign is going to have to rely on the media to carry that."