Candidates look ahead to Texas, Ohio
HOUSTON -- Before polls closed Tuesday in Wisconsin and Washington state, the fight already was on in Texas and Ohio for the next prizes in the presidential sweepstakes.
The campaigns of Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama held dueling events in Houston, the biggest Texas city. Republican John McCain campaigned in a Milwaukee suburb before heading to Ohio.
"I will be our party's nominee for president of the United States," McCain said after scoring an easy Wisconsin win. "Now comes the hard part," he added, vowing to wage a fight against "an eloquent but empty call for change," a veiled shot at Obama, who has made change his campaign theme.
Obama continued his post-Super Tuesday winning streak with a Wisconsin victory. Clinton, meanwhile, has been looking to the March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas to regain momentum in the delegate race.
In the Lone Star State, Obama rented the arena that is home to the Houston Rockets basketball team for a rally that drew 12,000. A few blocks away, Clinton's surrogate in chief, her husband and former president Bill Clinton, headlined a private fundraiser whose tickets went for as much $1,000.
Hillary Clinton touted her economic proposals earlier in a Cleveland suburb. She then was to spend the night at home in New York and planned stops in Texas' heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley today.
Clinton and Obama will meet Thursday in Austin for a debate sponsored by CNN.
McCain, an Arizona senator, is looking to build his delegate count to the 1,191 needed to clinch the GOP nomination. The GOP front-runner still faces an aggressive challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who campaigns in a Dallas suburb today.
An Associated Press tally gave McCain 908 delegates going into Tuesday, and he won at least 13 in Wisconsin. Voters in Washington, where 19 delegates are at stake, are mostly casting ballots by mail and results won't be known until today.
At a rally Tuesday in Brookfield, Wis., McCain said he respects Huckabee's decision to stay in the race but added that Republicans must unite and prepare for the fall campaign. "We're going to face a tough competitor," he said.
Huckabee, meanwhile, suggested he might take his campaign all the way to the GOP convention Sept. 1-4 in St. Paul. "It might actually boost enthusiasm for the party if we got to the convention and then decided who the nominee was going to be," he said.
In Texas, the Clinton-Obama contest drew heavy interest at more than 400 polling places statewide. Early voting began Tuesday and runs through Feb. 29.
At a community center in Houston's Montrose neighborhood, Harris County elections clerk Lee Parsley reported 818 voters, about four times the normal traffic. Shanna Cooper, 28, said she voted for Obama even though "I'm usually very Republican." Ali Cayoglu, 44, backed Clinton because "she has more experience than Obama."
Clinton has ties in Texas going back to when she and her husband worked on George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. She's backed by leading Democrats such as Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor who served in the Clinton Cabinet.
Obama earlier this week picked up the support of Rep. Chet Edwards, one of the state's 35 "super delegates" — the elected officials and party insiders who could be key in the Democratic race.
Also Tuesday, Democrats in Hawaii were holding caucuses that would send 20 delegates to the national convention. Florence Kong Kee, political director of Hawaii's Democratic Party, said turnout could be double the usual 5,000 voters who participate in party gatherings. State polls showed Obama, who was born in Honolulu, with a big advantage.
Jackson reported from Washington. Contributing: Derrick DePledge, The Honolulu Advertiser.