"McCain has to distance himself from Bush anyway, but this line of criticism increases the pressure on him to highlight those differences," said Dan Schnur, who was communications director of McCain's 2000 campaign.
McCain has tried to do that without alienating conservatives who support the president. He says that Bush has failed to respond adequately to the threat of global warming. He also has opposed the administration's detention and interrogation policies for suspected terrorists, although he voted against a Democratic bill that would have banned waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.
"I promise you, my friends, I'll close Guantanamo Bay, and we will never torture another person in our custody again," McCain told MSNBC last week.
McCain also has a history of friction with his party. He has tangled with leaders of the religious right. His push for campaign finance reform rankled party leaders.
But on the economy and the Iraq war, McCain's agenda barely differs from Bush's.
Senior McCain advisor Charles Black acknowledged that Bush and the party's tainted image posed challenges for McCain, especially amid an unpopular war and an economic slowdown. But he played down the significance.
"The guy we nominated is independent, and is not perceived by the voters to be the same as the president, nor as a typical Republican," Black said. "So we're sailing into the wind a little bit, but not with all the baggage that some other Republicans might have."
In Selma, where most residents are black, McCain used the word "change" seven times as he spoke to a nearly all-white crowd of more than 100 on a riverbank by the bridge where the Bloody Sunday beatings occurred 43 years ago.
"It's time for change," McCain told the crowd. "The right kind of change; change that trusts in the strength of free people and free markets; change that doesn't return to policies that empower government to make our choices for us, but that works to ensure we have choices to make for ourselves."
McCain hailed the courage of civil rights leader John Lewis, now a Democratic congressman, and others who marched in Selma. He said he would spend the week gathering ideas about how government can help Americans.
Asked about the lack of African Americans in the crowd, McCain said he knew many voters would not support him.
"But I'm going to be the president of all the people, and I will work for all the people and I will listen to all people -- whether they decide to vote for me or not," he said. "I'm going to places, frankly, in this country where there is the greatest need, and whether, at the end of the day, they choose to vote for me or not is not my major purpose."
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michael.finnegan@ latimes.com
maeve.reston@latimes.com
Finnegan reported from Los Angeles and Reston from Alabama.
