At a town hall meeting in Manchester yesterday, Sen. John McCain looked back to his 2000 bid for the presidency. It was one of his low moments, he said, when he took the advice of his political consultants and said something he didn't believe to voters in the South Carolina primary.

When asked about his views on the Confederate Flag at the time, he said it was a choice that should be left up to the states.

"It was an act of cowardice, and I lost the South Carolina primary anyway," McCain said.

Seven years later, and faced with unpopular positions that have cost him Republican support and fundraising dollars, the Arizona Senator said he would not make the same mistake again. Every time he's wavered from his core beliefs to satisfy a political constituency, he's regretted it, McCain said yesterday, suffering damage both "politically and in my self esteem."

"On an issue like the war or immigration, and I'm sorry you had to mention it," he said to a questioner. "I have to do what is right."

Yesterday marked McCain's return to New Hampshire since the completion of the shakeup that rocked his presidential campaign . The McCain campaign has lost its manager, chief strategist, its finance director and national communications team and reported disappointing fundraising numbers that forced McCain to fire dozens of lower level staffers.

The new McCain campaign will rely less on paid consultants than local advisers, focus intensely on key early voting states, and will return to the strategy that won him the 2000 New Hampshire primary, aides have said. Yesterday, in a series of stops, McCain illustrated the new approach, speaking forcefully on issues dear to him and traveling with a slimmer crew of staffers - and a significantly smaller cadre of reporters and television cameras.

His message hasn't changed much, though he spoke little about immigration reform, an issue that figured prominently in previous visits and on which he differs from many Republican voters. McCain still advocates sustaining the troop surge in Iraq, suggests expanding use of nuclear power to combat global warming, and blasts Congressional waste and corruption. He also repeated his assertion that he's the most qualified candidate for the job of president.

"I need no on the job training, I need no backgrounding, I need only the opportunity," he said in Manchester.

At his last New Hampshire visit two weeks ago, McCain came with a full complement of suited campaign staff, was trailed by dozens of national news media outlets and delivered a lengthy speech on Iraq war policy, which he read off a teleprompter.

Yesterday, after two town hall meetings, heavy on question and answer sessions, and a quick lunch stop, McCain walked down Main Street in Nashua with members of his New Hampshire advisory committee, shaking hands. A trio of volunteers followed, bearing cardboard "John McCain" signs and dressed in slightly mismatched blue button-down shirts and khakis .

As McCain neared the end of the walk, he turned into town hall, where the mayor and city finance director took him into every office to meet Nashua's municipal employees. McCain walked up the stairs to see all three stories of the building, stopping to examine a mural on the second floor, and a wall decorated with copies of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other important documents in the country's history.

In the office of Mayor Bernard Streeter, a supporter, McCain admired the display cases full of elephant figurines.

"Bernie, a terrible thing has happened," he said. "A zebra has snuck in here."

As McCain slipped behind the clerk's counter, Mark Cookson, one of two city alderman on McCain's state steering committee, said he'd been inviting McCain to visit city hall for months and was pleased with the campaign's new direction.

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