McCain and Clinton look to next battle

REPUBLICAN John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton yesterday looked ahead to the next battles in a chaotic White House race after scoring tough wins in the first presidential voting in the south and west of the US.

Mr McCain narrowly defeated rival Mike Huckabee on Saturday in South Carolina — a state where Mr McCain’s presidential hopes were destroyed in a bitter 2000 battle that set George W Bush on a path to the White House.

“It took us a while, but what’s eight years among friends,” Mr McCain, an Arizona senator, told cheering supporters in Charles- ton. “We are well on our way, and I feel very good.”