Sen. McCain plans the way forward...

The rest of March will be a planning month for Sen. McCain. Along with a trip to some key foreign allies to show off his ample foreign policy experience advantage, he also will spend some time plotting his "big theme" policy approaches to small government, pro-growth economics, and pro-American foreign policy. This article in the Weekly Standard provides a nice overview:

The money and national political network that come with being a nominee will allow McCain to build the kind of operation his team had begun to put together last spring, when overspending left the campaign nearly broke. In that sense, his campaign will get an upgrade. Still, all signs point to a strong year for Democrats, and McCain will be outspent by the Democratic nominee, whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, next fall.

So while McCain's effort will begin to take on the qualities of a real general election campaign, he intends to preserve much of the insurgent character that helped him get this far. Either way, it will be unconventional and, at the beginning, nonideological.

After a quick "thank you" tour of New Hampshire, McCain plans to kick off the new phase of the campaign by not campaigning at all. At least not overtly. Later this month, he will spend more than a week overseas, with stops in Europe and the Middle East. His advisers say that while McCain is going chiefly to assess progress in these areas, he will also reinforce an important campaign message as the Obama-Clinton fight continues. "While those two are throwing deck chairs at each other, he'll look like the president," says a senior adviser to McCain.