McCain says he is nervous but looking ahead

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaks to reporters on his bus on his way to a campaign rally in Fairfield, Connecticut, February 3, 2008.

FAIRFIELD, Connecticut (Reuters) - Republican front-runner John McCain on Sunday admitted to nervousness about his chances on Super Tuesday but also was thinking about a general election battle against the Democrats.

Ahead of Republican nominating contests in 21 states on Tuesday, McCain has a sizable lead in many of those states and could emerge that day as the presumptive Republican nominee.

After an up-and-down year, he could not help but rap his knuckles on the table in his campaign bus, a wish for good luck by the superstitious McCain.

"I'm very nervous about it because, you know, I've seen this movie before," he told reporters on his bus. "My job is to keep our expectation levels down and frankly not raise expectations to a degree that we could suffer some setback."

It has been a long road to the high ground for the Arizona senator, who at 71 would be the oldest person ever elected to a first presidential term.

His political obituary was being written last summer when his campaign ran out of money and he had to dump staff and scale down operations.

Now he is on the cusp of a big comeback, and over the past couple of days he has alternately veered between exuding confidence to experiencing anxiety about whether he can actually pull it off.

"There have been so many ups and downs in this campaign that for us to think that we have a smooth path to the nomination I think would be contradictory to the history of this campaign," he said.

But McCain made clear he is thinking ahead. He said a general election campaign if he wins the Republican nomination battle over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be much like his campaign thus far.

It would feature town-hall meetings, the type of events in which he takes questions from voters. He said these would be open to any one who would wish to come, not just reserved for Republicans, a subtle rap on the campaign practice of President George W. Bush, who often took fawning questions from supporters at his events.

He also said he would tool around on his "Straight Talk Express" bus and take questions from reporters. McCain has received generally favorable media coverage by making himself readily accessible to reporters.

If he takes command on the race on Tuesday, he said, he would go ahead with plans to travel to Germany to attend a national security conference in Munich at the end of this week, and might make a side trip to Iraq.

Then he said he would meet with his close advisers and begin plotting a general election campaign against either Democrat Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. He has already accused them of lacking the experience to be president.

Reflecting on Republican Bob Dole's 1996 defeat to Democratic President Bill Clinton, McCain said he would avoid Dole's mistake of taking time off after winning the party's nominating battles.

Clinton used the period to frame the case against Dole and went on to an easy victory over Dole.

"It's an important time to make sure that you are gaining ground and moving forward and not sitting still," he said. "If you're still, you're moving backward."

(Editing by David Wiessler)