Sen. John McCain has defeated former Gov. Mitt Romney in the coveted
GOP Florida primary, sending him to next week's critical Feb. 5
multistate battle a bona fide Republican front-runner. This is McCain's third primary win, having garnered victories
in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but the first in a
Republicans-only contest that excluded independent voters. Just a few months after his campaign was all but dismissed and was
struggling in polls on reports of lackluster fundraising and staff
shake-ups, the Arizona senator now has national momentum. "Our victory may not have reached landslide proportions but it
is sweet nonetheless," McCain told cheering supporters at a rally in
Miami, who yelled "Mac is back!"
"This was a hard-fought election that was worth fighting hard for," he said. "My friends, in one week we will have as close to a national
primary as we've ever had in this country," he said. "I intend to win
it and be the nominee of our party." McCain's victory in the Sunshine State earns him all of
Florida's 57 delegates, making him the Republican with the most
delegates so far in a race looking increasingly like a delegate-war.
Giuliani's Florida Bid Crushed
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are fighting for third place. The outcome is a crushing blow to the presidential aspirations of Giuliani, who gambled his entire campaign on winning the Florida primary, effectively skipping the earlier state contests. "It not over until it's over," Giuliani told supporters at a rally in Orlando, repeating the comment back to someone who first yelled it from the crowd. "Like most Americans, I love competition. I don't back down from a principled fight," Giuliani said. "The responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign. If you believe in a cause, it goes on and you continue to fight for it and we will," he said to cheers from the crowd.
Sharpton to Bill Clinton: 'Shut Up'
ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday weighed in on the raging debate inside the Democratic Party over former President Bill Clinton's advocacy on behalf of his wife's campaign, with two choice words for the former president: "Shut up." On ABC's "The View," Sharpton said voters are hearing "race charges, race-tinged rhetoric" in the Democratic primary campaign, and called on the former president to cease. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
"I think it's time for him to just be quiet," said Sharpton,
who was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. "I think it's time
for him to stop. As one of the most outspoken people in America,
there's a time to shut up, and I think that time has come." Sharpton didn't say which comments in particular bothered him. But
many Democrats were particularly upset that the former president made an explicit comparison
of Obama's campaign to Jesse Jackson's victories in South Carolina in
1984 and 1988, in an apparent attempt to explain why his wife didn't
win the South Carolina primary on Saturday. For his part, Jackson told The New York Times
that he wasn't bothered by the comparison. Still, he told the newspaper
that he had spoken to both Obama and President Clinton over the
weekend, and told both to "take it to a higher ground." SOURCE OF THIS STORY
