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McCain sets sights on victory
05/02/2008 14:32 - (SA)
New York - A confident John McCain was hoping for a decisive victory in the Republican presidential primaries despite sharp attacks from the party's right flank in the lead up to Super Tuesday.
Leading in national polls and in most of the 21 states which will be voting for Republican candidates on Tuesday, McCain was however running neck-to-neck with chief rival Mitt Romney in California, which may provide an upset.
"The polls this morning are very close," Romney said at a campaign stop in Nashville, Tennessee Monday. "This is going to come down to a real battle and I think I'm going to win it."
Romney has gained momentum from a backlash from conservative icons such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who refuse to forgive McCain for opposing a ban on same sex-marriage, supporting immigration reform and his not-always-veiled contempt for some leaders among the religious right.
"On issue after issue, he is out of the mainstream of the Republican party," said Romney, who called McCain "indistinguishable" from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
In a series of campaign stops across the east coast, the maverick senator from Arizona defended his conservative voting record and cast himself as the candidate best able to beat the Democrats in November.
"If you look at the numbers, I can match up against either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton very well and compete in any state in this nation," he said at a press conference in New York's Grand Central Station, where he was introduced by former Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani.
"I am confident I can unite, and will unite and am uniting this party."
The Vietnam war hero led Romney 48 to 24% in a Washington Post/ABC News national poll of likely Republican voters, with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee at 16%.
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