Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Barack Obama girded themselves for more fierce
battles in their tight race for the Democratic presidential
nomination, as Clinton disclosed she lent millions of
dollars to her presidential campaign to fuel the
costly White House fight.
Republican
front-runner John McCain, meanwhile, reached out to his
conservative critics with an appeal Wednesday to find
''something we can agree on'' as he focused on
translating his big ''Super Tuesday'' wins into the
party's presidential nomination.
In a sign of
Obama's growing financial advantage, Clinton acknowledged
Wednesday that she loaned her campaign $5 million late last
month as Obama was outraising and outspending her
heading into the Democrats' 22-state contests on
Tuesday. Some senior staffers on her campaign also are
voluntarily forgoing paychecks as the campaign heads into
the next round of contests.
''And I think the
results last night proved the wisdom of my
investment,'' the former first lady said, one day after
splitting victories with Obama.
McCain's sweep of
races in California, New York, and seven other states
firmly put the Arizona senator on track for the party's
White House nomination.
McCain sought
Wednesday to smooth his path by attempting to convince his
harshest Republican critics who are angered that he breaks
with party-line conservative views on issues such as
immigration.
''I do hope that
at some point we would just calm down a little bit and
see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of
the party and for the good of the country,'' he said,
addressing right-wing pundits who argue he is too
liberal for the party.
Nearly complete
delegate returns from coast-to-coast races on Tuesday
left McCain with 707 delegates, nearly 60% of the 1,191
needed to win the nomination at the convention in St.
Paul, Minn., this summer. That was far ahead of his
rivals.
Mitt Romney, who
withdrew from the race Thursday, had 294 delegates;
Mike Huckabee, 195; and Texas congressman Ron Paul had 14.
On the Democratic
side, Clinton and Obama split the spoils in their
Tuesday contests. The mixed results tightened an already
close race. Both Democrats would be formidable
adversaries for McCain, as the Republican Party has
been closely associated by voters with the unpopular
President George W. Bush.
Clinton won in
eight key races, including the most valuable, California
and New York, but Obama was close behind with wins in at
least 13 of the 22 states that held Democratic
contests Tuesday, and he has fresh momentum as the
race moves into territory where he would seem to have an
edge.
The Democratic
delegate count lagged because of party rules that award
delegates proportionally rather than the winner-take-all
approach that Republicans use in some states.
Clinton had 1,045
delegates, to 960 for Obama, out of the 2,025 needed to
secure victory at the party convention in August. Clinton's
advantage is partly due to her lead among so-called
superdelegates, members of Congress and other party
leaders who are not selected in primaries and caucuses
-- and who are also free to change their minds.
On Wednesday,
Obama offered some pointed advice to superdelegates. He
said if he winds up winning the most delegates in voting,
they ''would have to think long and hard about how
they approach the nomination when the people they
claim to represent have said, 'Obama's our guy.'''
Delegates still
to be allocated included 25 in New Mexico, where
Democratic voting remained too close to call. The
southwestern state's Democrats were to begin examining
more than 17,000 provisional ballots Thursday to
determine a winner. Such ballots are given to voters who go
to the wrong site or whose names are not on registered voter
lists.
Obama campaigned
Wednesday as the Democrat tough enough to withstand
Republican attacks in the general election, arguing
Wednesday that he has been tested by the hard-driving
Clinton campaign.
''The Clinton
research operation is about as good as anybody's out
there,'' he told a news conference. ''I assure you that
having engaged in a contest against them for the last
year, that they've pulled out all the stops.... We can
take a punch. We're still standing.''
Obama is in a
good financial position for upcoming contests. Officials
with both campaigns have said Obama raised $32 million in
January and Clinton raised $13.5 million, a
significant gap between the two that allowed Obama to
place ads in virtually every Super Tuesday state and to
get a head start on advertising in primaries and caucuses
over the next week.
Buoyed by strong
fund-raising and a primary calendar in February that
plays to his strengths, Obama plans a campaign blitz through
a series of states holding contests this weekend and
will compete to win primaries in Maryland, Virginia,
and the Washington, D.C. area next week and Hawaii and
Wisconsin the following week. Clinton, with less money to
spend, will instead concentrate on Ohio and Texas,
large states with primaries March 4 and where polling
shows her with a significant lead.
Clinton's
personal loan illustrated her financial disadvantage and her
desire to pick her targets with care. She sent an e-mail
appeal to donors Wednesday seeking $3 million in three
days -- an effort, that if successful, would match the
fund-raising rate Obama averaged for the entire month
of January. (AP)
