"When I'm president," he said again and again through the day, filling in a litany of the good things to follow: More jobs, lower energy costs. A president who would bring change and not just talk about it.
"When I'm president, we're going to win in Afghanistan, win in Iraq, and our troops will come home with victory and honor."
But once he started out this way: "My friends, if I'm elected president. ..." He quickly caught himself: "When I'm elected president. ..."
Bucking him up, the crowd in Indianapolis chanted his name, over and over.
"John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! ..."
The Arizona senator's 18-hour east-to-west odyssey would later take him to New Mexico, Nevada and home to Phoenix in the early morning of Tuesday's Election Day. Buoyed by what campaign manager Rick Davis said was a promising surge in Western battleground state polling, the campaign was even adding stops on Tuesday, in New Mexico and Colorado.
"In New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, it's all margin of error," Davis told reporters even though public polling showed Obama leading in those longtime Republican bastions. "It's a slow process, the McCain way of grinding out a victory. Nothing fancy," Davis contended.
The day got off to a slow start in Tampa, on the western edge of Florida's vote-rich Interstate 4 corridor. McCain stepped before a crowd estimated at no more than 1,000 people near where President Bush drew 15,000 to a campaign rally in 2004.
"With this kind of enthusiasm and this kind of intensity, we will win Florida and we will win the election!" McCain declared, even though the crowd seemed neither particularly enthusiastic nor intense.
Obama would draw about 9,000 people to a rally later Monday in Jacksonville, on I-4's eastern end.
Things improved later at a rally in Blountville, Tenn., where the media market all includes western Virginia. Some 5,000 people jammed into an airport hangar to cheer McCain as he spoke of his plans to develop clean coal technology and offered greetings from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his running mate.
"I don't know if you saw "Saturday Night Live." I really believe Sarah Palin and Tina Fey were separated at birth," McCain joked of Palin's newfound celebrity.
McCain went on to smaller but spirited rallies in Moon Township, Pa, near Pittsburgh, and in Indianapolis, where his voice had grown noticeably hoarse.
If McCain harbored concerns about the uphill battle he faced, he showed little sign of it as he took the stage at campaign rallies with his wife, Cindy, daughter, Meghan, and a host of friends from his long career in Washington.
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a longtime ally and independent Democrat who endorsed McCain last year, has been a constant traveling companion as has South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, whom Cindy McCain introduced to crowds as McCain's best friend.
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez was also aboard McCain's campaign plane Monday as was North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, whose state has become a fiercely competitive presidential battleground.
McCain's lines were familiar at every stop, but delivered with energy to audiences eager to hear them again:
- "Senator Obama is running to spread the wealth; I'm running to create more wealth."
- "We both disagree with President Bush on economic policy. The difference is, he thinks taxes are too low, and I think spending has been too high."
- "Remember, that attack on Joe the plumber is an attack on small businesses everywhere in America."
- "My friends, I'm not George Bush. If Senator Obama wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run four years ago."
McCain, the former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, has been a politician for decades. He can read polls. But he told his supporters to fight on.
"Don't give up hope. Be strong. Have courage and fight. Fight for a new direction for our country. Fight for what's right for America. Fight to clean up the mess of corruption, infighting, and selfishness in Washington.
"Stand up. Stand up and fight," he challenged as the crowd cheered.
"Nothing is inevitable here," he said. "We never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history."
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On the Net:
McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com
Obama: http://www.barackobama.com
