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Sen. John McCain, the former prisoner of war whose bid for the White House appeared in complete collapse just one year ago, accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday with a pledge to move the nation beyond “partisan rancor” and narrow self-interest. His speech came at the end of a convention marked by some blistering attacks on his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.

Standing in the center of an arena here, surrounded by thousands of cheering Republican delegates, McCain firmly signaled that he intended to seize the mantle of change Obama claimed in his own unlikely bid for his party’s nomination.

McCain suggested that his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate gave him the license to run as an outsider against Washington, even though McCain has served in Congress for more than 25 years.

“Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming,” McCain said.

With his speech, McCain laid out the broad outlines of his general election campaign. He sought to move from a convention marked by an intense effort to reassure the party base to an appeal to a broader general election electorate that polling suggests has turned sharply on Republicans and President Bush.

To that end, McCain returned to what has been his signature theme as a presidential candidate, including in his unsuccessful 2000 campaign: that he is a politician prepared to defy his own party.

“The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn’t a cause, it’s a symptom,” he said. “It’s what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you. Again and again, I’ve worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That’s how I will govern as president.”

McCain defined bipartisanship as not only working with the opposite party but being prepared to work against his own party, even though he is aligned with Bush on two of the biggest issues facing the country: the Iraq war and the economy. That pledge of political independence and bipartisanship could prove especially valuable at a time when Republican party is so unpopular.

It also permitted him to reprise what has been a central line of attack against Obama, the Democratic nominee, at a convention whose motto is “country first”: that his opponent has put his political interests ahead of those of those of the country.

“I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again,” McCain said. “I have that record and the scars to prove it. Sen. Obama does not.”

He invoked a word — maverick — that has sought to associate himself with over the years.

“You know, I’ve been called a maverick, someone who marches to the beat of his own drum,” he said. “Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment and sometimes it’s not. What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.”

He added: “I’m not in the habit of breaking promises to my country, and neither is Gov. Palin. And when we tell you we’re going to change Washington, and stop leaving our country’s problems for some unluckier generation to fix, you can count on it. “

The McCain campaign not only tried to seize the “change” mantle from Obama but the “peace” one as well. Scores of signs saying “Peace” in capital letters were passed out among the delegates on the floor of the convention — despite the fact that it was Obama who opposed the Iraq war from the start, while McCain was an early proponent of it.

McCain’s speech closed two weeks of back-to-back conventions in which both candidates disclosed the names of their running-mates and sought to repair fissures in their parties after fiercely contested nominating battles.

Throughout the night, leading figures in the Republican party offered a case against Obama, attacking what they said was his lack of experience, portraying him as someone whose main talent was giving a good speech, and assailing his opposition to the troop escalation in Iraq that McCain long championed.

In highlighting a war that is politically unpopular, McCain’s allies were seeking to make the case that he would defy political risk in favor of principle, and that in their view, their example was evidence of McCain’s superior judgment on foreign policy.

“Not once was Barack Obama’s eloquent voice ever raised in support of victory in Iraq,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told the convention before McCain spoke. “ Not once was it used to rally our troops in battle. Instead, he inspired those who supported retreat and would have accepted our defeat.”

Graham criticized Obama for not having visited Iraq for two years to understand what was happening there. In the process, Graham invoked a familiar phrase Obama used against McCain last week in suggesting that McCain did not understand the economic problems facing the country.

“Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying Barack Obama doesn’t care,” he said. “I’m just saying, he doesn’t get it.’ ”

Cindy McCain recommended her husband to the crowd — and the nation. “If Americans want straight talk and the plain truth they should take a good close look at John McCain, a man tested and true who’s never wavered in his devotion to our country,” she said. She called him “a man who’s served in Washington without ever becoming a Washington insider.”

Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania, contrasted what he said was Obama’s record and that of McCain.

“It’s not about building a record — it’s about having one,” he said. “It’s not about talking pretty. It’s about talking straight.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.