The United States needs to overcome its fear of nuclear power and embrace the technology as a way to wean itself from fossil fuels, Sen. John McCain told an audience in Manchester yesterday.

Nuclear power "is safe. The technology is here," McCain said, speaking to a crowd of about 200 at a breakfast hosted by The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women. "It's a NIMBY (not in my backyard) problem, and a waste-disposal problem. It is not a technological problem."

McCain pointed to France, which draws more than three-quarters of its power from nuclear plants, and Russia, which has plans to build 40 new plants, as examples. "We've got to get over it, get over Three Mile Island," he said, referring to the 1979 accident at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant.

McCain, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, touched upon a range of subjects during a nearly hour-long address and question-and-answer session, including his displeasure with Google's decision to submit to censorship in China.

For the bulk of his speech, though, McCain repeated an address he gave last month in Concord at a fundraiser for state Senate Republicans. He spoke about three main topics: congressional spending, immigration and Iraq.

He also told many of the same jokes, including one about a lack of discipline in Washington ("I often say that Congress spends money like a drunken sailor, but I never knew a sailor drunk or sober with the imagination of some of these people") and one about his cameo appearance in the comedy Wedding Crashers, a movie Matt Drudge labeled a "Boob Raunch Fest.""In Washington, I work with boobs every day," McCain countered.

Still, if the material was familiar, no one seemed to mind. The crowd embraced McCain - who defeated George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary - as an old friend. He shared fond memories of campaigning in the state and declared his devotion to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. In return, he received frequent cheers and applause. Afterward, McCain happily shook hands, signed autographs and posed for pictures with a flock of well-wishers.

Many in the crowd backed McCain against Bush in 2000, and they said they envision McCain reprising his presidential bid. Monica Cornelia of North Hampton skipped the 2008 New Hampshire primary altogether and asked McCain, as the assumed nominee, whom he would pick for vice president.

Cornelia said she wanted to make sure the Republicans would have the strongest possible ticket to defeat Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, should she run. (Cornelia scored cheers from the crowd for calling Clinton "the evil one" and saying "she makes my skin crawl.")

McCain tried to avoid speculative talk of his political future. He cracked a joke about his time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, then mentioned that he's focusing on the 2006 midterm elections, not the 2008 presidential race.

"It's hard for me to contemplate a vice president when I haven't decided to run for president yet,"he said.

McCain, a fourth-term senator from Arizona, is not up for re-election this year. Instead, he's working to help Republican congressional candidates overcome public disapproval with the ruling party in Washington, he said.

"Look at the polls. We're at a 22 percent approval rating in Congress," he said. "And I haven't met the 22 percent recently that support us, so I want to focus all of my efforts on maintaining our majorities in both houses. And that is clearly in jeopardy, as we speak."

McCain said Republicans have six months to send a message that they can lead effectively in Congress. During that time, he hopes to see lawmakers reduce spending and pass an immigration bill, among other results, he said.

McCain said his first priority on immigration is to secure the borders. His second is to create a guest-worker program that would allow a U.S. company to hire a foreign worker if it was unable to fill the position domestically after a 60-day search. The guest worker would need to obtain a "tamper-proof biometric visa" to secure the job, instead of the current Social Security card and birth certificate that could be forged or obtained on the black market, he said.

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