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John McCain clinches Republican nomination

John McCain capped one of the greatest comebacks in US political history to clinch the Republican presidential nomination and came out firing against his eventual Democratic rival.

"I am very pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," McCain told a victory rally in Dallas late on Tuesday.

It ended months of uncertainty in the once muddled Republican race, which at one point had some eight candidates all chasing the nomination.

And it was another chapter in the story of the 71-year-old Vietnam war veteran who has more than once defied the odds.

The Arizona senator immediately served notice that he intended to fight his presidential campaign on some of the toughest issues facing the country -- national security and the war in Iraq.

"America is at war in two countries and involved in a long and difficult fight with violent extremists who despise us, our values and modernity itself," he said.

He vowed to continue his tough stand on the war in Iraq, against Democratic calls for the troops to be withdrawn.

"I will defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime as I criticized the failed tactics that were employed, for too long, to establish the conditions that will allow us to leave that country, with our country's interests secure and our honor intact," he said.

And he pledged "the swiftest possible conclusion" to the war without allowing sectarian conflict to degenerate into "genocide" or allow "terrorists to attack us elsewhere with weapons we dare not allow them to possess."

It capped a remarkable turn around in his political fortunes, as McCain's second bid for the White House had been all but written off in the middle of last year after he nearly ran out of funds.

Meanwhile, US Senator Hillary Clinton -- reinvigorated by campaign saving primary wins -- yesterday hinted that she would accept Barack Obama as her Democratic vice presidential running mate, but braced for stiffer challenges from a rival still leading the all-important delegate count.

Clinton won primaries in on Tuesday in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, halting Obama's winning streak. Obama won in Vermont.

Both Democrats yesterday insisted they had the best credentials to go head to head -- or as Clinton put it "toe to toe" -- against McCain.

"We have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning and we are on our way to winning this nomination," he told supporters in San Antonio, Texas.

The onus had been on Clinton to break through after a string of setbacks left her fighting to keep her hopes alive of becoming the first female US president. Obama had won 11 straight contests going into Tuesday's primaries. Clinton's supporters had said she had to win in both Texas and Ohio -- both big states -- to sustain her candidacy.

Her share of the Ohio vote was 55 percent in nearly complete returns, and the New York senator was winning nearly 51 percent in Texas. She won Rhode Island with more than 58 percent of the vote.

Obama was gaining roughly 60 percent of the Vermont vote.

In Tuesday's four-state competition for delegates, Clinton picked up at least 100 delegates, to at least 77 for Obama. Nearly 200 more remained to be allocated for the night, 163 of them in the Texas primary and in caucuses that followed the Texas vote.

Overall, Obama had 1,466 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates, an Associated Press count showed. He picked up three superdelegate endorsements on Tuesday.

Clinton had 1,376 delegates. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination at the party's national convention in Denver.

Clinton and Obama spent most of the past two weeks in Ohio and Texas in a costly, bruising campaign, with Clinton questioning his sincerity in opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement, an unpopular free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, and questioning his readiness to serve as commander in chief.

Polling place interviews with voters found the economy was the No. 1 problem on the minds of Democratic voters in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. In Vermont, almost as many voters said the war in Iraq was their top concern.

Hispanics, a group that has favored Clinton in earlier primaries, cast nearly one-third of the votes in Texas. Blacks, who have voted heavily for Obama this year, accounted for roughly 20 percent of the votes cast.

Once considered the inevitable Democratic nominee, Clinton has struggled to counter Obama's message of hope and change. Obama, seeking to become the first black president, has inspired huge electoral turnouts and amassed record-breaking financial contributions.

Even before polls closed, Obama said he expected the contests would continue through Wyoming and Mississippi over the next week and through Pennsylvania, the biggest single prize left, on April 22.

"All those states coming up are going to make a difference," he said.

But Clinton's task remains difficult. Democratic Party rules virtually assure losers a significant share of delegates, making it hard for Clinton to overtake Obama. Slightly more than 600 delegates remain to be picked after Tuesday.
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