Sen. John McCain barnstormed through a skeptical South on Saturday, campaigning for a Super Tuesday knockout in the Republican presidential race. Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton worked the West.
“I assume that I will get the nomination of the party,” McCain told reporters, the front-runner so confident that he decided to challenge rival Mitt Romney in his home state of Massachusetts.
Romney, on the other hand, celebrated a caucus victory Saturday in Maine and told reporters he plans to do well Tuesday, “planning on getting the kind of delegates and support that shows that my effort is succeeding, and taking that across the nation. . . . I am encouraged by the support which I’m seeing grow for me.”
Clinton stressed pocketbook issues and the home-mortgage crisis in a discussion with voters in a working-class neighborhood, and health care at a noisy rally in California attended by former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
“My opponent will not commit to universal health care. I do not believe we should nominate any Democrat who will not stand here proudly today and commit to universal health care,” the New York senator said in the continuation of a months-long debate over which candidate’s plan would result in wider coverage among the millions who now lack it.
Obama stopped in Idaho, where caucuses offer a mere 18 delegates on Tuesday, and he worked to reassure Westerners on two fronts.
“I’ve been going to the same church for more than 20 years, praising Jesus,” he told an audience in Boise, warning listeners not to believe e-mails that say he is a Muslim.
In a region of the country where hunting is a way of life, he also said he has “no intention of taking away folks’ guns.” The Illinois senator did not mention his support for gun-control legislation.
Neither campaign expects to emerge Tuesday with a lock on the nomination, and they have already begun turning their attention to Feb. 12 primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
The GOP landscape is different for McCain, Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with nine of Tuesday’s 21 contests awarding delegates winner-takes-all to the top vote-getter.
At a stop in Minnesota, Romney called his caucus victory Saturday in Maine, where he took a little over 50 percent of a presidential preference vote, “a people’s victory,” noting that it came despite McCain endorsements by the state’s two U.S. senators.
“It is, in my view, also an indication that conservative change is something that the American people want to see. I think you’re going to see a growing movement across this country to get behind my candidacy and to propel this candidacy forward,” Romney said.
Huckabee campaigned across Alabama, taking thinly veiled swipes at McCain and Romney.
“You really would like to get a president to agree with himself on some issues,” he said in a reference to Romney, who has switched positions on key issues since he ran against Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts in 1994.
