WASHINGTON — Derek Patterson is just the kind of voter that made John McCain a star on the national political scene.
Patterson, a teacher in Lancaster, N.H., was one of the thousands of independents who were attracted to the Arizona senator's maverick presidential campaign in 2000, propelling his upset victory over George W. Bush in the state's primary, first up in the election season.
But as McCain returns to New Hampshire today on his second quest for the presidency, Patterson worries that many erstwhile supporters will desert the Republican lawmaker because he has spent much of the last seven years courting the Bush establishment and the party's conservative base.
"He was the anti-Bush," Patterson said. "It soured a lot of people when he became like Bush-light."
That is in part why McCain, once widely seen as the front-runner for the GOP's 2008 presidential nod, has failed to live up to that presumption. Instead, recent nationwide polls have shown him trailing former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani by as much as 20 percentage points among Republican voters.
McCain advisors are betting he can recover by dint of a huge fundraising machine and strong local political operations, especially in the key early primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But his standing in those two states, while illustrating his strengths, also illuminate his weaknesses as he tries to shake off the impression that his campaign is flagging.
In New Hampshire, he is laboring to convince the state's famously independent voters that he is still the plain speaker they embraced in 2000. But he is weighted down by vast burdens, above all his outspoken support for President Bush's Iraq war strategy. The war is highly unpopular among the state's independents.
In South Carolina, where Republicans in 2000 stampeded to Bush and effectively buried McCain's candidacy, he is reaping the benefits of a more durable political operation than the slapdash campaign he built seven years ago. McCain has made himself the early favorite of the state party leadership, racking up scores of endorsements, just as he has in many other states.
But whether in New Hampshire, South Carolina or elsewhere, McCain is struggling with the challenge of adopting his new role as the favorite of party insiders while preserving the outsider status that was central to his appeal in 2000.
