US:PRESIDENT GEORGE W Bush formally endorsed Republican John McCain for president yesterday, calling him a man of character who is "not going to change" when it comes to taking on Islamic extremists.
"He's going to be the president who will bring determination to defeat an enemy and a heart big enough to love those who hurt," Mr Bush said in a Rose Garden ceremony at which Mr McCain sometimes had trouble getting in a word edgeways.
Mr Bush gave Mr McCain - whom Bush defeated in a bitter 2000 battle for the Republican presidential nomination - the red-carpet treatment at the White House, welcoming him at an entrance normally reserved for heads of state and treating him to a West Wing lunch.
Mr McCain clinched the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night, and immediately castigated his potential Democratic rivals as liberals who lacked the experience and wisdom to lead a country facing economic distress at home and engaged in war abroad.
The senator from Arizona easily won primaries in Texas and three other states, becoming the new face of the Republican Party and at last, captured the prize that had eluded him for a decade. The victories ended one of the great tests of political endurance for a man whose personal mettle was forged by five years in a North Vietnamese prison.
His political ambitions were dashed in 2000 by Bush and again seemed to end last summer amid staff infighting and financial chaos. But he soldiered on, emerging on Tuesday night as the far-from-universal choice of a fractured Republican Party.
His remaining rival, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, captured about a third of the vote in Texas, signalling the frustrations that conservatives still feel about Mr McCain.
Campaigning in Texas, Mr McCain told reporters he will "await the outcome" on the Democratic side. But in his victory speech at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Mr McCain made it clear that he will begin immediately to make his case that the country cannot afford to have either Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Senator Barack Obama as president.
"I will leave it to my opponent to argue that we should abrogate trade treaties, and pretend the global economy will go away and Americans can secure our future by trading and investing only among ourselves," he said to a screaming crowd. "I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big-government mandates of the '60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health-care insurance for some Americans."
Mr McCain added enough delegates on Tuesday night to take him over the 1,192 he will need at the party's national convention in September.
Mr Huckabee conceded after the polls closed, saying he called Mr McCain to congratulate him for an "honourable" campaign and pledging "to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly to unite our country".
Mr McCain focused much of his speech on terrorism and the Iraq war."America is at war in two countries and involved in a long and difficult fight with violent extremists who despise us, our values and modernity itself," Mr McCain said.
"It is of little use to Americans for their candidates to avoid the many complex challenges of these struggles by re-litigating decisions of the past."
Those who cast ballots in Texas and Ohio, the two biggest contests, overwhelmingly supported Mr McCain. He won easily among independents, Republicans, men and women, and those of all ages.
But several groups of voters continued to express their dislike of Mr McCain. Evangelicals and Texans who call themselves "very conservative" voted for Mr Huckabee in greater numbers than for Mr McCain.
Looking toward November, Mr McCain has so far aimed much of his criticism at Obama, whose performance leading up to Tuesday night's primaries appeared to make him the likely nominee. But the tight races in those Democratic contests made it clear that Mr McCain and the Republicans must be ready to face Mrs Clinton, too.
Top McCain strategists believe the ongoing fight between Obama and Clinton will give them time to raise money, develop their strategy and define their own candidate to a national audience before a full assault by Democrats. Mr McCain has already begun to paint both potential rivals as dangerous liberals.