WASHINGTON - It was unthinkable just a few weeks ago that John McCain would be topping national opinion polls in the Republican race dominated for most of 2007 by Rudy Giuliani.
A triumphant win in New Hampshire last week has clearly made believers out of some who doubted McCain, 71, is the right man to represent the party in this November's general election.
At least for now. Mac is Back, as the campaign signs proclaim. But is he here to stay?
Anything can happen in the run-up to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when two dozen states will vote.
Much depends on whether McCain the maverick can burnish his conservative credentials in a party that had been praying for a Ronald Reagan clone but is faced instead with a bewildering array of diverse contenders.
In the process, McCain has to be careful not to tarnish his long-held reputation for straight talk and taking a firm stand that more moderate Republicans and independents love.
It's a tricky balancing act that some analysts say he might just pull off given the wide-open nature of a contest that includes three others besides McCain and Giuliani, namely Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
"I'm confident that we can do well with the entire spectrum of the party and I'll reach out to everybody because that's what a candidate has to do," McCain said recently.
"I am a conservative. I have a conservative voting record. I think I can appeal to all parts of my party. I think that's one of my strengths."
The four-term senator has amassed a long voting record on economic and social issues that has won a lot of right-wing supporters.
Yet when it comes to McCain being at odds with party stalwarts during the tenure of President George W. Bush, the list is long.
And the Vietnam War hero who lost the nomination to Bush in 2000 has made a lot of enemies along the way.
Conservative hawks have liked his staunch support of the Iraq war, although he was branded disloyal by some after attacking Bush for not sending enough soldiers from the get-go.
Now that the U.S. troop surge is paying off, his longtime support for more forces has also paid dividends.
But there are wide swaths of Republicans who aren't happy.
Evangelicals flocked to Bush in droves after McCain described evangelical leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" who exerted an "evil influence" on the Republican party. That support proved critical to getting Bush elected.
Some are no more fond of McCain now but he sees an opportunity.
"There is a great concern in the evangelical community about climate change and they agree with me on that issue," he told Newsweek magazine.
McCain voted against Bush's first major tax cut in 2001 and the next one in 2003, upsetting fiscal conservatives and angering powerful advocates like anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.
He upset the gun lobby by working to mandate background checks on buyers at gun shows. He angered energy companies by opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He thinks gay marriage should be left to the states to decide.
His push to overhaul campaign financing was particularly derided by many interest groups.
And he has upset a lot of Republicans by supporting legislation that would have granted many of the country's 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, an ultra-right Republican who was defeated in the 2006 elections, has called McCain "very, very dangerous" for the party.
"Almost at every turn on domestic policy, John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side," said Santorum, who was the Senate's third most powerful politician for several years.
Still, nothing is more persuasive than success. And if McCain can build on his New Hampshire win, all the talk about who he's annoyed may be moot.
"In three or four weeks, everybody will be for McCain," Republican lobbyist Charles Black told the Washington Post newspaper.
Two polls released Monday suggested McCain had overtaken Giuliani as the top Republican choice for the first time.
A New York times poll pegged him with big increases in support on the question of who has the best shot at getting elected president, who has the best experience and who is the strongest leader.
But the poll also found that only one-third of his supporters back him "strongly."
Meantime, McCain was sticking to his infamous independent streak in the run-up to the Michigan primary Tuesday.
He told voters worried about the state's economic slump and high unemployment rate that some of the auto industry jobs are gone for good, calling it the kind of blunt reality people need to hear.
And he wasn't changing his tune on trade despite the temptation to pander to fears that foreigners are costing American jobs.
"I am a free trader and I will never change," he said recently.
"I say that international free trade agreements have created millions of jobs in America. If you go up and see the border between Michigan and Canada, you'll see truckers lined up for miles."
