02/20/2008

By DAVID AMMONS  / Associated Press

John McCain, finally comfortable with declaring himself the Republican nominee for president, used a convincing victory in Washington to help seal his remarkable comeback from political roadkill.

Although the Arizona senator had barely won Washington's party-run caucuses just 10 days earlier, he stormed to an easy state-run primary victory over Mike Huckabee and six others Tuesday night, and accepted the crown as nominee-in-waiting. McCain also won in Wisconsin.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's surprising strength was the other big story of the night in Washington's Democratic primary.

Although she was pasted by Barack Obama in the Feb. 9 caucuses here, she led in the early primary tally and stayed close to Obama for the rest of night. Clinton backers were jubilant with her showing, but Obama virtually ignored the election because no delegates were involved.

Although Obama, the crowd-pleaser of this year's remarkable election season, trounced Clinton in the caucuses with 68 percent, he had a tougher battle among the broader electorate in the nonbinding, no-delegates primary. He struggled to break 50 percent against Clinton in the primary. Clinton led in 18 counties, although Obama was big in populous King County, home of the Democratic stronghold of Seattle.

The Republican results were being used to award 19 national delegates, but all of the Democratic delegates were awarded in the Feb. 9 caucuses.

With about 53 percent of the vote in, McCain had 49 percent, easily beating Huckabee, his last major remaining rival for the nomination, and departed candidate Mitt Romney. Huckabee had 21 percent and Romney 20 percent. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, whose anti-war, libertarian message played well in the caucuses, was far back at 7 percent in the primary.

McCain, who also triumphed earlier in the evening in Wisconsin, said in a speech in Ohio that he's finally ready to declare "with confidence and humility that I will be our party's nominee for president."

Nineteen GOP national convention delegates were at stake, 56 counting Wisconsin, as McCain moved closer to the 1,191 delegates needed for nomination.

McCain narrowly won the Washington caucuses on Feb. 5, but was the runaway winner in an election that drew a broader electorate — a result he had predicted. He was far ahead of a field of eight Republicans, many of them departed from the race since the secretary of state drew up the ballot in last December.

Chris Fidler, the Seattle attorney who headed McCain's state campaign, said the broad primary victory was all the sweeter after McCain's narrow caucus victory was disputed by Huckabee.

"I'm always nervous before a game, but I'm very pleased with the results," Fidler said. "Sen. McCain has a great deal of support among Republicans, and that that will translate well with independents here in Washington."

Joseph Fuiten, a Bothell pastor and spokesman for Huckabee's Washington campaign, said Huckabee had a good showing in the state.

"Obviously not enough to win — but he made a statement that there are strong evangelicals and conservative voters in the state," Fuiten said. "McCain is a good man and he's well supported. People appreciate his strong stance on national defense. He won the state both times around."

In the Democrats' straw vote, Obama held a slim lead over Clinton. With 53 percent of the vote tallied, Obama had just under 50 percent to Clinton's 47 percent. Six other Democrats, including departed candidate John Edwards, trailed with tiny percentages.

Clinton forces had hoped she would do much better in the primary than in the Feb. 9 caucuses, where Obama swamped her.

"We campaigned hard in Washington state and it's encouraging to see signs of that support again tonight," said Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker.

"We're thankful for the support we've received across the state as we shift our attentions to the next set of important primaries on March 4."

In a victory speech and a national e-mail to supporters, Obama didn't mention Washington. His campaign considers the caucuses the state Democrats' official method of picking delegates and continues to count the state as part of a 10-state sweep since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, said spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

As for winning the beauty-contest primary, "We haven't weighed in on that," she said.

Democrats will use the caucus results to allocate all 78 of their elected national convention delegates and Republicans used caucuse to allot 18, or half of their delegates.

The primary, created by a citizen initiative approved by the Legislature in 1989, offered a second, less significant, opportunity for average voters to mark ballots for their presidential favorite.

A record turnout of 1.5 million voters, 47 percent of those registered, was predicted — five times the number that the much-hyped caucuses drew. But the primary was barely a blip on the national election calendar.

That's because the Democrats are using only the caucuses to award delegates, so Obama and Clinton didn't return to campaign. Instead, they stumped in Wisconsin, where Obama won Tuesday's primary, and in Ohio and Texas, which vote in two weeks, with 370 delegates at stake.

Republicans, meanwhile, already had their presumptive nominee, McCain.

McCain, who has begun to gather the GOP establishment around him, said on his last trip to Seattle, on Feb. 8, that he expected to do far better in the primary than in the caucuses, which were heavily organized by backers of Huckabee, Paul and Romney.

McCain won the caucuses, but just barely. He got 25.3 percent of the delegates, just ahead of Huckabee's 23.2 percent and Paul's 21.5 percent.

For the Democrats, the primary involved only limited bragging rights for the winner.

Neither Obama nor Clinton viewed the Washington primary as a significant test, and state Democratic Chairman Dwight Pelz called the election a meaningless extravagance.

However, Secretary of State Sam Reed and other defenders of the primary said the election would draw a much larger and broader cross-section of the electorate.

Voters didn't have to choose between the two voting methods — and could participate in both the caucuses and the primary, as long as they stayed with one party for both. In both the caucuses and the primary, participants had to declare a party affiliation.

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Associated Press Writer Rachel La Corte contributed to this report from Olympia.

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On the Net:

Results: http://www.vote.wa.gov