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 "If you know who you are, if you know what you believe in, if you know your principles, if you know what you are fighting for, then you can reach out to those you don't agree with," he told a crowd of more than 1,500, including students, assembled in a Concord, N.H., high school. "If they are Republicans and independents who are working with me, that makes us stronger."
The first-term senator from Illinois said he would demand sacrifice from Americans when necessary, be frank about his goals and open in his governance.
Then, lifting McCain's catch phrase, he added: "We need someone who exercises straight talk instead of spin."
Obama's victory Thursday in Iowa caucuses dashed Hillary Rodham Clinton's front-runner status, and elevated his hope of making history as the first black presidential nominee. He remains in a tight race with Clinton in New Hampshire, with John Edwards giving chase.
Obama's open-armed appeal, typically heard in general elections not primaries, was aimed not only at independents and Republicans, but at Democrats who Obama's campaign believes are attracted by an inclusive message. The approach has made him a target of his main rivals, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, who argue his vision is naive.
"There's no shortage of anger in Washington people," he said. "We don't need more heat, we need more light."
He added a new punch line to one of his stump speech standards, recounting how Republicans have approached him and whispered their support.
"Last night," he said to loud applause, "they weren't whispering!"
Notably, the campaign chose a self-described independent voter, Susan Leidy, a deputy museum director in Manchester, N.H., to introduce Obama to the crowd. And as he scanned the audience, he asked for a show of hands from undecided voters, as he had in the final weeks of campaigning in Iowa. About a third of the hands shot up, at which point he promptly turned to volunteers and began to point some out for them to pursue.
McCain's wasn't the only echo heard in Obama's Concord speech. He also channeled Edwards' populist, anti-trade message. "We're going to have trade agreements that have labor standards, environmental standards and safety standards so our children aren't chewing on toys that have lead in them," he said.
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 And like Edwards, he portrayed himself as a candidate free of special interests, declaring that his political campaigns have not taken money from lobbyists or political action committees. While Obama has refused contributions from federal lobbyists and PACs for his presidential campaign, lobbyists and PACs have contributed to his Senate campaign and to a leadership committee he set up to assist other federal and state candidates.
Earlier, arriving from Iowa in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama said his win in Iowa lived up to his dreams. His kindergarten dreams.
"This feels good. This feels just like I imagined when I was talking to my kindergarten teacher," Obama said to laughter in a cold, echoing airplane hangar.
The kindergarten line is a favorite for the Obama campaign, referring to an exchange with the Clinton campaign over the longtime ambitions of their candidates.
A month ago, Obama took an apparent swipe at Clinton by saying he hadn't been planning to run for president for years like "some of the other candidates." The Clinton campaign responded by citing media reports quoting Obama and friends talking about him running for the White House for years
- and mentioning essays he'd written even in the third grade and kindergarten. Obama has focused on the kindergarten mention, ridiculing the Clinton point.
"My throat's a little sore, but my spirits are high because last night the American people began down the road to change and four days from now, New Hampshire, you have the chance to change America," Obama told supporters in Portsmouth.
Clinton was being joined in Nashua by her husband, hoping to become the family's newest "Comeback Kid" in a state that revived Bill Clinton's run for the Democratic nomination in 1992.
Obama said he would stick with his winning strategy in an abbreviated dash to the finish in New Hampshire's presidential primary campaign, despite facing a different political alignment.
Obama said he saw no reason to revamp his campaign: "No, it's not broken, why fix it?"
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Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott in Portsmouth, N.H., contributed to this report.
[Associated
Press; By JIM KUHNHENN]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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