By RIA Novosti
Washington : John McCain won the Republican Party presidential nomination after victories in Tuesday’s primaries as Hilary Clinton took Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island to revitalize her Democratic Party nomination bid.
Senator McCain’s victories gave him the required number of delegates to guarantee that he would represent the Republican Party in November’s U.S. presidential elections. His only rival, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, dropped out of the race after the results of the Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island primaries came through.
“I am very pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States,” McCain, 71, said to crowds of supporters in Dallas.
Following an earlier easy victory in the Vermont primary for Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton desperately needed to take both Ohio and Texas to remain in the hunt for the Democratic Party nomination.
Her subsequent victories in the key states suggested that a ‘whispering’ campaign against Obama that involved ‘leaked’ photos of the Hawaiian-born candidate dressed in traditional ‘Islamic’ robes and allegations that he was a practicing Muslim, including repeated use of his middle name – Hussein – may have begun to pay off.
Although Clinton has distanced herself from the photograph of Obama and the ‘Muslim’ claims, she has also said that she cannot be responsible for the actions of all of her campaign staffers.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Clinton was rapturous after her primary victories all but ensured that the race for the Democratic nomination would go down to the wire.
“For everyone here in Ohio and across America who has ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you,” Clinton told supporters.
However, despite Clinton’s claims of a comeback, Obama still leads in terms of the all-crucial delegate count, and he told supporters in Texas that, “We have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning and we are on our way to winning this nomination.”