(even) More Mccain

Now some longtime McCainiacs are bitter that they didn't just stick with what made the candidate in the first place. "They set up a national campaign, a la Bush 2000, and that won't work," said Steve Duprey, a New Hampshire backer since that first campaign and former state party chair there. "McCain works best with the 2000 approach."

"After 2000, there were such hard feelings about him from the Bush campaign," said a McCain adviser. "We were able to patch that up here in Washington. But out in the hinterlands, they didn't get over it."