Still-unsettled US White House races head to next state contests

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - White House hopefuls looked Sunday to their next nominating contests, with little time for Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton to savor their key weekend wins.

After grabbing the winner-takes-all victory in South Carolina's Republican primary with a 33 percent share of the vote over former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's 29.9 percent, Senator McCain, Sunday demurred from front-runner status and looked to coming state contests, including Florida on January 29.

"I think we are obviously doing very well in the national polls and in Florida we are ahead, but I still think this is very competitive," he told reporters, even though he now has two important state victories under his belt.

"Reality is, (winning here) helped us a very great deal. It's important. The South is very important to any Republican presidential candidate," McCain said.

In Nevada's caucuses Saturday, the former first lady seeking to become the first woman US president won 51 percent of the popular vote in the Nevada caucuses, against 45 percent for Illinois senator Barack Obama. John Edwards trailed with just under four percent.

"This is one step on a long journey throughout the country as we put our cases forward and take that case to the people, and this was an especially wonderful day for me," Clinton told cheering supporters.

But in a sign of how tight the race is, Obama's campaign contended that he had in fact won more Nevada delegates to the national convention that will choose the Democrats' presidential nominee in the November election.

McCain buried the ghosts of his 2000 primary defeat here, when he lost to George W. Bush after a battle poisoned by smears that were low even for South Carolina's no-holds-barred politics.

Both parties are looking ahead to "Super Tuesday" on February 5 when more than 20 states will be up for grabs.

Clinton's fresh triumph over Obama gives her campaign a shot of energy ahead of South Carolina holds its crucial Democratic primary next Saturday.

Obama, who beat Clinton in Iowa at the start of the 2008 race only to see her come back in New Hampshire, pledged that his bid to be the country's first black president was far from over.

"We ran an honest, uplifting campaign in Nevada that focused on the real problems Americans are facing, a campaign that appealed to people's hopes instead of their fears," he said.

"That's the campaign we'll take to South Carolina and across America in the weeks to come, and that's how we will truly bring about the change this country is hungry for."

Also Saturday, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney easily won Nevada's Republican caucus with more than 51 percent of the vote, adding to his victories in Michigan and Wyoming, after his rivals spurned the state in favor of South Carolina.

On Sunday he said the choice between him and McCain was clear as he highlighted the flagging US economy, likely to be a key issue this year.

"I think if people want somebody who has been in Washington all their life and understands Washington's ways and has been part of the Washington scene for a quarter of a century, then John McCain will be their person," he told Fox News.

"If they want somebody instead who's been in the real economy over the last 25, 30 years, who understands why jobs come and why they go and understands what it takes to grow an economy, then I think I'll be their person."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080120/pl_afp/usvote2008 [link]