John McCain returned to New Hampshire today, the state that turned his campaign around and set him on the road to the GOP Nomination. He was accompanied by good friend, Independent Sen. Joe Libermann. Here is a summary of his stop in Exeter, New Hampshire:

John McCain made a triumphant return to New Hampshire on Wednesday, thanking the state that launched him toward the Republican presidential nomination and telling voters he will need their support again to win in November.

"Can I give you a little straight talk?" the Arizona senator said, using his trademark expression at the end of one of his trademark town-hall meetings. "The state of New Hampshire will be a battleground state. I intend to be back and back and back."

He also used the visit, little more a week after he officially won enough delegates to be the nominee, to publicly make peace with some of his primary rivals. He singled out Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

"We are reuniting our party and we've got to re-energize it," he told a crowd of several hundred.

Earlier in the day, McCain told reporters he had begun to flesh out his plans for conducting the search for a running mate, but he also declared the process too fresh to begin ruling in or out any candidate.

Of Romney, who on Tuesday said he would accept an offer, McCain told the town-hall audience: "He fought hard, he fought well. I believe that Governor Romney has earned a place in our Republican Party and I think he's part of the future of our Republican Party."

The senator called Giuliani "a genuine American hero" for his leadership following the 9/11 terrorist attack, and Huckabee and Thompson good and decent men.

McCain was accompanied by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, who also has been mentioned as possible running mate, as he was in 2000 when he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Lieberman jabbed at Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have been jousting over experience by debating who is best equipped to answer a crisis call in the middle of the night.

Lieberman said of McCain: "He's ready to be commander in chief not just at 3 a.m. -- but at any a.m. or p.m., 24/7. This guy knows what it means to be a leader."