NEWPORT, N.H. (AP) – Another newspaper endorsement praised Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Sunday for putting conscience over party. But a voter told the Arizona senator he worried that bitterness, not integrity, had pushed him to split from the Bush administration over the years.

“After the 2000 election it seemed like you had a bitter defeat,” Jeff Goff told McCain at a crowded town hall meeting Sunday afternoon. “Straight talk became back talk and you and (former Sen. Majority Leader) Tom Daschle were having a competition to see who could derail the Republican agenda.”

McCain said he has spent his life and career in reconciliation.

“I think the hardest thing and one of the worst things you can do is hold a grudge,” he said. He noted that he campaigned for President Bush both after losing to him in 2000 and again in 2004, but said he was compelled to oppose what he views as Bush’s lack of restraint when it came to spending. McCain voted against the adminstration’s tax cuts because they were not coupled with curbs on spending.

“I will stand up for what I believe in. I do not march to the drum of my party every time because I do know what’s right and what’s wrong,” McCain said. “And I know that fiscal sanity is something we have to exercise before this country is basically bankrupt.”

He also emphasized his opposition to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s strategy in Iraq.

“I will take positions that I know are right based on what my experience and knowledge leads me to,” he said. “Loyalty to one’s party is important. But loyalty to your country and the men and women who are defending it is a far greater obligation.”

Goff said later that he worried that McCain had been motivated by a personal vendetta, but he was won over by McCain’s response.

“That was incredible,” he said.

McCain was endorsed Saturday by the Nashua Telegraph, which praised him for his forthrightness and integrity.

“At a time when some candidates present themselves to voters as something they haven’t always been, we find the Arizona senator to be the genuine article,” the newspaper wrote. “You might not always agree with his answers, but you won’t leave a conversation wondering where he stands.”

AP-ES-12-30-07 1817EST