McCain Takes the GOP Nomination

AUSTIN — John McCain, whose second race for the White House was in ashes last summer, continued his remarkable rise Tuesday by claiming four primary victories to win the GOP presidential nomination denied him eight years ago.

McCain easily defeated his remaining GOP foes – former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul – in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The victories put the Arizona senator over the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.

In Dallas, McCain declared victory and called it "an accomplishment that once seemed to more than a few doubters unlikely."

"I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," he told cheering supporters.

The next task, he said, is "to make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people that our campaign and my election as president, given the alternatives presented by our friends in the other party, are in the best interests of the country we love."

"I have never believed I was destined to be president," he said. "I don't believe anyone is pre-destined to lead America."

On Wednesday, McCain will go to the White House to accept Bush's endorsement in the Rose Garden, Bush aides announced Tuesday night.

"The president said he'd campaign vigorously for the GOP nominee once we have a clear one," a Bush aide said Tuesday night as the votes were counted. "And it's likely we'll have one tonight."

Huckabee, who rose from a little-known candidate to a solid contender who won several states and 247 delegates, conceded in Dallas, calling McCain after it was clear the Arizona senator had clinched the nomination.

"I sent him not only my congratulations but my commitment to him and the party to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly, to unite our country so we can be the best nation we can be," he said.

Paul conceded by issuing a victory statement noting his renomination for his House seat.

"I have no Democrat opponent in November and will serve another term in Congress where I will continue my battle in behalf of taxpayers," he said in a statement that made no mention of the presidential race.

Tuesday results showed McCain continuing to make inroads with conservatives and evangelicals, core GOP constituencies he has had trouble attracting. In Ohio, two-thirds of voters identified themselves as conservatives, according to exit polls. McCain carried that segment by a 17-point margin over Huckabee.

Forty-five percent called themselves "born-again or evangelical Christians." Huckabee carried that group, but only by six points.

Moments after McCain's nomination was assured, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean blasted him as "out of touch with the issues facing Americans every day."

"The closer voters look at the real McCain record, the more they will realize he cannot be trusted to deliver the change America wants," Dean said.

McCain quickly tried to frame issues sure to be paramount in the fall, including the war in Iraq.

"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. But Americans know that the next president doesn't get to re-make that decision, " he said. "We are in Iraq and our most vital security interests are clearly involved there."

McCain also tried to brand the Democrats as purveyors of a failed philosophy.

"I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big government mandates of the '60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health care insurance for some Americans," he said.

In November, McCain, who will be 72 then, will try to become the oldest person to win the White House and the first Vietnam veteran in the job. Depending on the Democratic outcome, McCain will face either the first female or first black to win a major party presidential nomination.

Regardless of the November foe, McCain aides acknowledge the challenge for a Republican candidate closely tied to the policies of President Bush.

"We have a brand-name problem," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a McCain backer.

But McCain adviser Charlie Black sees his man as the candidate Democrats dread.

"They're getting the candidate they didn't want," Black said.

Both Democratic contenders mentioned McCain's victory in their Tuesday night speeches. Hillary Clinton, in Columbus, Ohio, said simply, "I congratulate Senator McCain on winning his party's nomination, and I look forward to a spirited and substantive debate with him."

In San Antonio, Barack Obama said he called McCain to congratulate him.

"But in this election we will offer two very different visions of the America we see in the 21st century because John McCain may claim a long history of straight talk and independent thinking, and I respect that, but in this campaign he has fallen in line behind the very same ill-served policies" of Bush, Obama said. "He has seen where George W. Bush has taken this country and he promises to keep us on the very same course. It's the same course that threatens a century of war in Iraq."

Obama also said McCain and Clinton "have echoed each other, dismissing this call for change as eloquent but empty, speeches not solutions, and yet they know, or they should know, that it's a call that did not begin with my words."

Tuesday's victories wrapped up a comeback for McCain, who quickly went from front-runner to potential also-ran as his campaign faltered in its early months last year as big-name and big-money GOP foes absorbed much of the attention. McCain retooled his campaign, including jettisoning some long-time aides, and went back to the more personal campaign style that worked well for awhile in 2000.

McCain's second presidential campaign began last April 25 with his announcement in Portsmouth, N. H. At the time, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the perceived front-runner and some voters, including some who liked McCain, were doubtful about his chances. Some polls gave Giuliani a 20-point lead over McCain.

"There was not a sense of enthusiasm," Leslie Haslam of Exeter, N.H., said after hearing McCain's announcement speech. "I saw him twice in 2000 and everybody, regardless of which side of the aisle they were on, came away fired up. This is not firing us up."

McCain, undaunted, was the happy warrior that day, remaining upbeat and confident his fundraising and standing would improve.

"I'm happy to be back in Portsmouth, one of the homes of one of my heroes, John Paul Jones," he said of the Naval commander famed for refusing to surrender in the face of long odds and saying, "I have not yet begun to fight."

For McCain – whose campaign was nearly broke last summer and needed a $3 million bank loan to him to remain afloat - the path to nomination seemed perilous, including having to navigate around a troubled history with the party's more conservative wing and evangelicals. In 2000, he referred to some evangelical leaders as "agents of intolerance," an appellation he later regretted.

Many conservatives – unhappy with McCain's on several issues, including his immigration plan that included potential citizenship for illegal immigrants — looked elsewhere, including to Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson. But one by one, they faded.

"The failure of conservatives to congregate around a single candidate early in the process certainly helped McCain quite a lot," said political scientist Dante Scala of St. Anselm University in New Hampshire. "And unlike Romney, who tried to be something he was not, McCain never tried to be anything other than what he was."

Eventually – later than sooner for many – top conservatives signed on with McCain. In Texas, that included Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry (who initially backed Giuliani).

Last week in Dallas, Cornyn told conservatives not quite yet smitten with McCain, "I sort of liken it to a grieving process. You come to acceptance ... (and) on every issue I care about an you care about John McCain is head and shoulders above Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton."

One-time front-runner Giuliani's campaign was doomed by a failed strategy that skipped the early states in favor of concentrating on Florida, where he was trounced.

Moving forward, McCain's November challenge is magnified by his links to the man who beat him in 2000. McCain is an ardent supporter of the war and the temporary tax cuts that Democrats want to kill off and he initially opposed.

From day one, McCain stuck with a damn-the-consequences mantra about Iraq.

"The war is far more important than any political ambitions I have," he said in Portsmouth, setting a tone from which he never wavered. "I believe if we fail there will be chaos and genocide in the region and that they will follow us home."

"I'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war," he said.

For now, the Iraq war has not cost him a campaign, instead leading him to a nomination once thought beyond his reach.

"The campaign he set up and was trying to run a year ago was a total failure, except for him and a few people around him, and he rebuilt it," said Dick Bennett, an independent pollster in New Hampshire. "And then he basically started from scratch and did what he did in 1999 in New Hampshire and basically rebuilt it one voter at a time. It's an amazing story because he was gone."

At the University of Missouri, political scientist Peverill Squire owns up to being among those who once counted McCain as down and out. He credits the comeback to the success of the military surge in Iraq and the weakness of the GOP field.

"The surge in Iraq turned a terrible situation into a not-quite-so-terrible situation," Squire said. "Given McCain's strong support for the surge at a time when many other candidates raised doubts about it worked to his benefit with GOP primary voters."

Romney, Squire said, "had the look and the money to succeed, but he never appeared to have any core beliefs and ultimately came off as a phony."

Giuliani suffered from social policies that differed with core Republicans, and what Squire called the "dumbest campaign strategy in memory," one dependent entirely on Florida.

Thompson, Squire said, was all the rage among many conservatives for awhile. And then he got into the race.

"Fred Thompson did not realize that he actually had to campaign until it was way too late," Squire said. "On reflection, in many ways McCain got the nomination by default."

Moving forward, McCain knows he now runs into a headwind caused by the unpopularity of Bush, the war, the faltering national economy and widespread disillusionment with Republicans.

Democrats already are trying to portray a McCain presidency as a third term for Bush.