McCain and Clinton rally for gruelling race ahead

FRESH from New Hampshire victories, John McCain rallied yesterday for a Michigan showdown in the most confounding Republican presidential contest in half a century while Hillary Rodham Clinton, buoyant once more, took time to “get grounded” for the gruelling race ahead.

Her top rival suggested his politics of hope is about to get a harder edge.

“We have to make sure that we take it to them just like they take it to us,” said Illinois senator Barack Obama, responding not just to his Democratic rival’s New Hampshire primary win but to attacks on him by her husband, former president Bill.

“I come from Chicago politics,” said Mr Obama.

“We’re accustomed to rough and tumble. I don’t expect this to be a cakewalk.” Back home in Chappaqua, New York, after a win that surprised her own campaign and shocked nearly everyone else, Ms Clinton — who has her own Chicago roots — considered questions about how to make her next big stand in the Democratic race and whether her organisation needed changes.

Being home, she said, “gives me a chance to kind of get grounded and take a deep breath before I go out for the next couple of weeks leading up to the February 5 grand finale of all those states”. She was referring to “Super Tuesday”, when more than 20 states vote. She also indicated she would not concede earlier states. “I’m going to keep going as we take on all the rest of the contests between now and February 5,” she said.

Mr Obama is bidding for resurgence in South Carolina and Nevada. Yesterday, he anticipated the endorsement of the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union in Nevada after collecting the backing of the state’s chapter of the Service Employees International Union.

He said unpredictability has become the hallmark of the race.

“Anyone who thinks they know how voters are going to respond at this point are probably misleading themselves,” he said. “And I think voters are not going to let any candidate take anything for granted. They want to lift the hood, kick the tires. They want us to earn it.”

Mr Obama said: “The real fairy tale is, I think, Bill Clinton suggesting somehow that we’ve been just taking a cakewalk here.”

Meanwhile, yesterday Mr McCain began campaigning in Michigan, a state he won in 2000.

He counted experience, knowledge and judgment as his calling cards.

“I can throw a dart at a map of the world and show you a place where there are national security challenges,” he said. “I’m the only one that’s been involved in these issues for the last 20 years.”

Arriving in Michigan, Mr McCain noted the state’s job losses and pronounced federal programs to help displaced workers a failure.

“None of them work,” he said. “I will develop programmes that work.”

The Arizona senator overcame Mitt Romney in New Hampshire to vault back to the top ranks of the Republican field.