Presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain, his wife at his side, denied a romantic relationship with a woman
lobbyist Thursday and said a newspaper report that he improperly favoured her clients was not true.
“I’m very disappointed in the article. It’s not true,” McCain said during a news conference called to address the matter. He described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.
In the Democratic race, Barack Obama earned his 11th straight victory, winning the Democrats Abroad global
primary in results announced Thursday _ the latest bad news for former front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has not won a nominating contest in more than two weeks.
Either Democrat would face a tough battle against McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who is disliked by his party’s conservative wing but popular with moderates and independents. The Arizona senator has built his political career on his integrity, and bristled Thursday at the allegations of misconduct. “He’s a man of great character,” his wife, Cindy McCain said.
Obama learned on Thursday he had won the primary in which Democrats living in more than 30 countries voted by Internet, mail and in person. The voting took place over the course of a week, beginning. 5.
Expatriates who voted in person did so in places ranging from hotels in Australia and Costa Rica, to a pub in Ireland and at a Starbucks coffee shop in Thailand.
There is no comparable primary among Republicans, though the party has several contests this weekend in US territories, including caucuses in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
Obama’s victory comes just two days after he defeated Clinton in a primary election in Wisconsin and caucuses in Hawaii.
He leads Clinton 1,351
delegates to 1,262 delegates, not including the 7delegates yet to be awarded based on the global primary voting results.
Obama’s recent victories have forced the former first lady into a virtual must-win scenario in the next Democratic nominating contests, including Ohio and Texas on March 4.
Once deemed the nearly inevitable Democratic nominee, Clinton must now win 57 percent of the remaining primary and caucus delegates to erase Obama’s lead, a daunting task requiring landslide-sized victories.
Obama, seeking to become the first black US president, has won a wave of support on his message of hope and change. He has brushed off criticism from Clinton and McCain that he lacks substance and as a first-term senator does not have enough experience to lead the United States.
The Clinton campaign has built a large operation in Texas, opening 20 offices around the state and counting 100,000 volunteers, and she has continued to aggressively take Obama on directly.
“If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she’ll be the nominee,” former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday during a speech to his wife’s supporters in Beaumont, Texas. “If you don’t deliver for her, I don’t think she can be.”
Obama has steadily encroached on Clinton’s territory among women and white working-class voters. In Wisconsin, he split the support of white women almost evenly with her and also ran well among working class voters.
Helping keep her afloat is her thin lead among nearly 800superdelegates, made up largely of party and elected Democratic officials who can vote however they choose but at least four of those who once backed her switched to Obama on Wednesday.
While both campaigns agree Obama is the leader in the delegate race, they differ on the significance.
“The only way in this system to amass delegates is to win by big margins. Close races result in close delegate distribution,” David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, told reporters in a conference call.
Clinton’s top aides said Plouffe was deliberately trying to set unrealist