McCain leads in US 'Super Tuesday' vote

Washington: Boosted by his big night, John McCain asked his loudest conservative critics on Wednesday to "calm down" and support his Republican presidential candidacy, as Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton girded for more rounds of their protracted struggle for the Democratic nomination.

Obama dared claim a "big victory" because he came from so far behind, but the spoils were closely divided and the bragging rights, shared.

McCain was referring primarily to radio talk show hosts and other pundits of the right when he appealed for unity now that he has a leg up in the nomination race.

"I think they've made their case against me pretty eloquently," he said, adding wryly, "if that's the right word." He asserted that the pundits' conservative hero Ronald Reagan - and his - reached across the aisle to Democrats just like he wants to do as president.

Both Obama and Clinton were looking ahead to the fall, campaigning as the Democrat tough enough to withstand Republicans attacks, and the Illinois senator pointedly argued Wednesday that he's been tested by the hard-driving Clinton campaign.

Obama cited his growth in opinion polls that once found him far behind Clinton nationally and in some Super Tuesday states. "We won big states and small states," he said. "We won red states and we won blue states and we won swing states."

Clinton, too, won big, small, red, blue and bellwether: her column includes California, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Arizona and Tennessee.

Altogether, Obama won 13 Super Tuesday states; Clinton, eight plus American Samoa. Clinton scored the advantage in delegates, bringing her total to 845 to Obama's 765, by the latest accounting. The road ahead was long for the Democrats: It takes 2,025 delegates to claim their nomination.

The New Mexico Democratic caucuses Tuesday remained too close to call.

The question of who won Super Tuesday was more easily answered on the GOP side, where McCain piled up more delegates than his two rivals combined and pushed past the halfway mark toward what's needed to clinch the nomination. His victories stretched from New York to California, the biggest prize. Still, Mitt Romney in the West and Mike Huckabee in the South proved to be go-to candidates for conservatives, and they vowed to stay in the thick of the race.

On Saturday, Louisiana and Washington state hold two-party contests while Nebraska Democrats and Kansas Republicans make their picks. Then comes a larger series of two-party primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday.

More than 168 Democratic delegates are at stake Tuesday, a sizable prize in two states and a district that are normally afterthoughts in nomination contests. Clinton, who plans to campaign in Virginia on Thursday, has been endorsed in Maryland by Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sen. Barbara Mikulski; Obama is backed by Virginia GovernorTim Kaine, and is expected to do well in largely black D.C.

Republicans will award 116 delegates in the trio of races dubbed the Potomac Primary.