Influential Republican Senator John McCain announced on Wednesday he will run for the White House in next year's race.
"I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States," McCain said on CBS television's Late Show with David Letterman.
The Arizona senator, who lost his party's nomination in 2000 to now-President George W. Bush, said he would make a formal announcement in April.
But his long-expected entry into the race sees him running well behind former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, his main competition for the Republican nomination, according to polls.
Regarded as a straight-shooter and something of a Republican maverick, McCain, 70, set Washington abuzz with a speech just following Congressional elections last November, which saw Republicans perform badly on voter unhappiness with the war in Iraq.
"Without additional forces, we cannot win this war," McCain said, taking a strikingly unpopular position in the election's wake.
Also in November McCain, who was a prisoner of war in the Vietnam conflict, used a congressional hearing to dress down General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East.
"I regret deeply that you seem to think the status quo and the rate of progress we're making is acceptable. I think most Americans do not," McCain said.
As Democrats demand a phased withdrawal of US troops, McCain has argued that more men must be poured in to flush out insurgent strongholds, crush militias and sectarian violence and to train Iraqi forces -- a position since taken up by Bush.
McCain's many maverick stands also include challenges to his own party over corporate financing and to the White House over torture.
But a new poll on Wednesday showed him lagging in the Republican race behind Giuliani, known as "America's Mayor" for his handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York. Giuliani was pulling in 44 percent of support, compared to 34 percent on Jan. 19, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll.
McCain, his top rival, lost six points, going from 27 percent last month to 21 percent in the new poll.
Former legislator Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994, gained six points, getting 15 percent of support compared to 9 percent a month ago.
On the Democratic side, meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton lost some ground the same survey showed.
But also showing strength was former vice president Al Gore, who got a boost following his winning an Academy Award on Sunday for his documentary on climate change An Inconvenient Truth.
Clinton, the former first lady, was favored by 36 percent of Democrats compared to 41 percent in an earlier survey. Her main rival in the 2008 Democratic race, Senator Barack Obama, enjoyed a surge in support with 24 percent in the latest poll compared to 17 percent in a Jan. 19 survey.
The poll numbers of another Democratic frontrunner, 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards, remained stable at 12 percent, just one point higher than a month ago.
But surging ahead of Edwards on his Oscar win was Gore, who though still denying any intent to contest the 2008 race moved into third place on the Democratic side with 14 percent support, up from 10 percent. Gore was defeated in the 2000 presidential race by Bush despite winning the overall popular vote.
The survey was conducted between Feb. 22 and Feb. 25, among 1,082 Americans. It has a plus-minus 3 percentage-point margin of error.
The first primaries to decide each party's nominees begin in early next year.
Regarded as a straight-shooter and something of a maverick at times in his party, McCain, 70, set Washington abuzz with a speech to a Republican political action committee in November, just over a week after the elections and on the day he took the first formal steps toward launching a presidential campaign.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from