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McCain solidifies lead as Romney quits campaign

Supporters of US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney listen as he announces the suspension of his campaign at a Conservative Political Action Committee convention on Thursday in Washington. PHOTO: AFP

US Republican Mitt Romney has ended his faltering presidential bid, effectively handing his party's nomination to Senator John McCain, who tried to mend his tattered relationship with conservatives and unify a splintered Republican Party.

Romney's decision, announced on Thursday, marked a remarkable turnaround for McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war whose campaign some seven months ago was barely viable, out of cash and losing staff. The four-term Arizona senator, denied his party's nomination in 2000, was poised to succeed US President George W. Bush as the Republican standard-bearer.

He still has to win over some right-wing members of his party upset by his prior support of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and stances on global warming and campaign finance reform that break with the conservative party line.

As part of that effort, McCain told conservatives in a speech on Thursday that he could not succeed without their support, and any differences within the party are eclipsed by his differences with chief Democratic rivals senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"It is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative," McCain told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday a few hours after Romney appeared before the same group to announce he was suspending his bid.

McCain will face Clinton or Obama, who are locked in an exceedingly tight battle for their party's nomination. Battling for every dollar and delegate, Obama raised US$7.2 million in the wake of Tuesday's multistate primary contests, and Clinton rallied to keep pace with him, pulling in US$6.4 million.

The stunning totals reflect the intensity of their historic neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Romney, who sought to be the first Mormon US president, said he decided to drop out of the race to avoid hurting the Republican Party's chances at taking the general election in November, suggesting that if Clinton or Obama were to win, security would be at stake.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney said.

Preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee remains in the race, but is far behind in the delegate hunt. Representative Ron Paul also was in the race, but had no chance to catch McCain.

Huckabee picked up an endorsement on Thursday from James Dobson, one of the nation's most prominent evangelical Christian leaders.
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