Lone John McCain rides into Philly, but this town ain't big enough for two leaders

George W Bush and his campaign team had tried their utmost to prevent anything detracting from the spectacle that will be his coronation this week as the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

George W Bush and his campaign team had tried their utmost to prevent anything detracting from the spectacle that will be his coronation this week as the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

But the day before today's official opening of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, there was little they could do to prevent their show being stolen by the man Mr Bush had defeated: Senator John McCain.

Apologising, ever so slightly disingenuously, for any attention he might have diverted from the nominee, Mr McCain arrived in Philadelphia on Saturday night at the head of a fleet of "Straight Talk Express" buses, clearly nostalgic for his primary campaign. "I can understand if there was some grumbling about it," he said of his arrival. "It brings back wonderful memories, but I'm sorry it's grown as big as it did ... I hope they take this as me seizing an opportunity to enhance Governor Bush's candidacy. And if they take offence all I can do is apologise."

However hard he tried to present himself as a good team-player, though, he still grabbed headlines with his refusal to rule out a run for the Presidency in 2004. The question, Mr McCain said, is "could you replicate the kind of magic and excitement we were able to create? We caught lightning in a bottle and I don't know if we'd be able to create that again."

Mr McCain has a knack of attracting headlines, and yesterday did just that at an alternative "shadow convention" held at the University of Pennsylvania. Explaining that he has chosen to remain a Republican "despite temptations to use other unconventional political means to satisfy my ambitions", he told his mostly young and excited audience: "I am obliged not by party loyalty but by sincere conviction to urge all Americans to support my party's nominee, Governor George Bush of Texas. I think it is quite clear that he is the candidate who offers change..."

This time, however, the independent-minded Mr McCain's gift for commanding an audience faltered. Amid muttering, came a shout: "That isn't what we came to hear!" With every subsequent paragraph praising Mr Bush came more unrest from the ranks.

The mood was quietly insurrectionist when scattered, but clearly orchestrated, barracking broke out around the hall, this time from protesters objecting to policies in his home state. The man who just 12 hours before had arrived in Philadelphia a hero, looked irritated and offered to abandon his speech. Clearly unnerved, he battled to the end but walked out without taking questions.

The shadow convention, brainchild of the Republican writer and socialite Arianna Huffington, was devised as a counter to the stage-managed blandness of the convention proper, and the first day lived up to its billing but if Mr McCain stole Mr Bush's eve of convention headlines, the denting of his heroic image would hardly be unwelcome in the Bush camp.

Mr McCain made clear he would contemplate another run only if Mr Bush lost this time. Losing, however, is not a word that figures in the vocabulary of the Bush camp, starting with Mr Bush himself, who is on a four-day tour of swing states that will culminate in his arrival in Philadelphia on Wednesday. His sharply efficient advance guard in Philadelphia last week successfully excised from the party's platform document any topic or phrasing that could have provided the slightest source of contention.

For the relatively modest price (to the Bush campaign) of accepting the existing hard line against abortion, the Texas Governor's placemen railroaded into party policy the Bush line on keeping a federal Department of Education (something the Republican right repeatedly try to abolish), and brought to an abrupt halt an effort to reform the timetable of the presidential primaries.

The reformed schedule would have made big states, like Texas, vote last; but might have handicapped a Bush bid for re-election. That the Bush campaign is apparently considering a second term before it has won the first is a measure of how confident it feels. The latest polls give Mr Bush a lead of between 11 and 16 per cent over his Democratic rival, Vice-President Al Gore.

The seating in the mammoth First Union stadium, which has been taken over by the Republican Party for its convention, provides a graphic illustration of favours granted and denied. The Texas delegation - from Mr Bush's home state - is up front and centre. After the announcement of Dick Cheney's nomination as Mr Bush's running mate, the seating was hastily redrawn to bring forward the small delegation from Mr Cheney's home state of Wyoming.

Another small state's delegates, however, are not so lucky. New Hampshire, which delivered a resounding victory for Mr McCain in the first primary - and then refused to redesignate itself a Bush state after his victory on Super Tuesday - has been pushed to the back almost out of sight.

The Bush camp also had to share the limelight yesterday with tens of thousands of protesters who had converged on Philadelphia in the hope of replicating their triumph last autumn when they comprehensively thwarted the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle. Dank, sultry weather may have limited the numbers yesterday, as did the shortage of basic accommodation for miles around the convention city.

But the city authorities and the police - like those of Washington DC during the meetings of the World Bank and IMF last spring - had learnt from the "Battle of Seattle" and were trained and ready. The Philadelphia police chief, John Timoney, mounted a charm offensive in the days before the convention, insisting that the watchword for his force wasrestraint. Police would be patrolling in more, but smaller, groups than usual at such protests, and would need orders from a superior before using any sort of force. Tear gas would be a last resort.

Protest groups, including Ruckus, which had spent weeks training its forces in passive resistance techniques, accused the authorities of harassment. One of the buildings they were using was closed down after a safety inspection 10 days before the protest, and they said they had found bugging and surveillance devices in another building they were using. Their relatively orderly march and protest through Philadelphia yesterday lambasted Republicans as the party of capitalist oppression that enriched the rich and kept the poor poor.

The first capital of the United States, home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is lavishly decked out in red, white and blue, with flags and welcome banners adorning almost every building. The city's distinctive skyline is sparkling. The streets seem to be constantly swept and every building seems to have a posse of polishers. The population - that part of it that has not left for the duration - has been drilled into a mass "welcome" team: ready to smile, give directions and shake hands at the slightest hint of a stranger's uncertainty.

From today, though, some of that training may go by the board. The delegates and the media will be corralled for much of the day and night in the First Union stadium, four miles south of the city centre. From then on, Philadelphians experience of "their" convention will be little different from that of any other American: they will watch it on television - and probably switch channels.