But one towering figure of the old guard remains. He's led Upper Darby's GOP since 1975. His block captains and committee people will turn out the vote on Tuesday.

He wields powers that Democrats whisper about. He makes sure Republicans get hired, they say. They imagine him running the county from a smoke-filled room.

"Impossible," says John F. McNichol, who turns 73 next month. "I don't smoke."

Officially, McNichol heads the party in Upper Darby, the county's most populous township. Unofficially, he sits atop a countywide GOP organization that has stayed in power for more than a century, a run historians say is one of the longest in the nation.

The lore of that organization is rife with delicious dirt: corruption, bootlegging, and a shadowy council known as the War Board that called the shots for decades until its demise in the 1970s.

"Ancient history," says Andrew Reilly, 47, the Middletown lawyer slated to take over as party chairman from Thomas Judge, 80, of Darby Township, next month. "I reject the term machine. Machines don't have hearts."

McNichol defends putting party loyalists in public jobs: "The patronage system is much stronger than the civil service system, because we can get rid of the bums and they can't."

The ground is shifting under him. Upper Darby for the first time is counting more Ds than Rs. The county went for Barack Obama.

But Republicans still rule 41 of the 49 municipalities, including Upper Darby. They've locked Democrats out of county office for 30 years. And the man who has orchestrated much of that is not exactly retiring.

"My day has come, and it's going," McNichol said in a wide-ranging interview this month at his Upper Darby office, with campaign signs heaped on the table and leaning on the walls. "But as long as I'm here, I guess people will be nice enough to ask my opinions about things."

His grandfather was a state legislator. McNichol first handed out campaign literature at age 9.

The New Deal was a bad deal in his house. The youngest of six children, McNichol said that his father, a Republican contractor, saw Democrats get the federal work under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

At 12, he was campaigning for Thomas E. Dewey. When Dewey lost to Harry S. Truman, he said, "I thought we would never win again."

McNichol studied math at Villanova University, got hired at Radio Corp. of America, worked on the University of Pennsylvania's fabled ENIAC computer project, married into a Delaware County political family, and plunged into politics.

His wife's grandfather was Sam Dickey, a county GOP leader and former bootlegger who reigned in the War Board's final days. In the mid-1970s, with the party reeling from Watergate, Dickey invited McNichol, then 38, to a key meeting. "I said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen and lady, I really believe you're going to hell for sins you didn't commit, and this party's still viable.' "

He helped rewrite party bylaws. The party bounced back, winning legislative seats and electing an all-Republican council in Upper Darby. That board has stayed in GOP hands from then till now.

McNichol counseled candidate Ronald Reagan. He's heard public life described by George W. Bush's daughters after a day's campaigning. ("They just flopped down over there and said, 'This is tough, people call you names.' ")

He also coached basketball - till his knees gave out. He writes letters for teenagers seeking college scholarships. "I can't tell you the number of times he's called me and said, 'We've got somebody in the township whose kid didn't make tuition. We've got to get behind them,' " says Wallace Nunn, a former County Council member. "He just lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps Upper Darby."

McNichol has 142 committee people in Upper Darby. Add block captains - on some blocks, one for each side of the street - and his troops number 1,000. For this work of knocking on doors and turning out the vote, he prefers church deacons, coaches - and barbers.

"He's got you in his chair every three weeks for an entire year, and he talks up the party," he said.

Another McNichol tactic: If you can't beat 'em, convert 'em. William Spingler, who was voted out of office in 1979 after the county did away with a minority-party requirement for the council, said McNichol offered him the top job at parks and recreation.

"I was flattered," recalled Spingler, now a Radnor commissioner. "But I would've lost my political independence."

Age has not slowed McNichol much. During the state budget crisis, he shuttled to Harrisburg to meet with the county's legislators. He "really urged" former U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, then eyeing a run for governor, to come home and run for Congress instead. Meehan agreed. He did not need reminding that his Drexel Hill neighbor, McNichol, had years ago helped elect him district attorney.

G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin and Marshall College, sees the pendulum swinging in the county. Still, Madonna said, "I'm actually surprised at the level that Republicans in Delaware County have been able to hold out."

Democrats are chipping away. They took Ridley Park and Marple in 2007; this year they aim to grab Sharon Hill and Millbourne. They're taking a hard run at council seats in Upper Darby - where they now outnumber Republicans by 2,586 voters.

To which McNichol says, good luck. "We have an organization that will produce enough votes."

Soon, he predicted, Upper Darby Republicans may get a new leader - perhaps his son, Paul. But not too soon, says McNichol's friend, Nunn. McNichol, he said, "is never going to step down until he goes to see Jesus."

John Francis McNichol

Born: Nov. 14, 1936

Home: Drexel Hill, Upper Darby Township, Delaware County

Family: Five children, 10 grandchildren, one great-grandchild

Education: La Salle College High School, Villanova University

Jobs: Radio Corp. of America, systems analyst, 1959-62

Burroughs Corp., head of regional technology representatives, 1962-67

Director of Delaware County Data Processing, 1962-2007

Chairman, Upper Darby Republican Party: 1975 to present

Nicknames: "The Pope," "St. John."