Bush Beats Back McCain

South Carolina voters turned out in record numbers Saturday and built what Texas Governor George W. Bush hopes will be his needed "firewall." Bush handily won the South Carolina Republican primary and warded off a potentially crippling blow. His triumph over Arizona Senator John McCain left Bush exultant.

"Because of this vote tonight, I will be the next president of the United States," Bush pronounced. He told his fans he was "honored and humbled by the huge victory."

With 99 percent of the vote counted in the Palmetto State primary, Bush had 53 percent to McCain's 42 percent. Alan Keyes, the only other candidate still in the GOP race, drew just 5 percent of the vote.

Bush won 34 of South Carolina's 37 delegates, while McCain took three. 1,034 delegates are needed to win the Republican presidential nomination. South Carolina's results raise Bush's delegate total to 61 and McCain's to 14.

Senator McCain had predicted victory in the last few days of campaigning. Saturday's results put a damper on the optimism that has carried him since his upset win in New Hampshire, 18 long days ago. But McCain rallied his troops as he spoke to them in a Charleston hotel ballroom.

"You don't have to win every skirmish to win the war," he said. "Our crusade fell a little short tonight, but our crusade grows stronger." He congratulated Bush on the win, and added, as his audience roared approval, "I wish him a happy celebration and a good night's rest - he's going to need it, my friends."

The ease of Bush's victory came as a surprise to many. Recent polls had projected a dead heat. Even better news for Bush was who voted for him. He won conservative voters and those from the religious right, as he needed to, but he also made hay elsewhere.

The South Carolina campaign saw a battle over the term "reformer," as each man argued he was the real thing. In exit polls, 36 percent of voters charitably said both men were reformers; 23 percent said Bush alone was, while only 18 percent saw McCain as the real reformer.

When they weren't parading as reformers, Bush and McCain accused each other of waging a negativ campaign. "He started it!" each whined. Exit polls show more South Carolinians thought McCain attacked unfairly than thought Bush did - disappointing news for McCain, who spent the last week preaching the gospel of positive campaigning.

None of that stopped McCain from saying in his concession speech, that "I'm a real reformer. I don't just say it, I live it. I'm a fighter for this country. I don't just say it, I live it." And, he added, voters faced a clear choice between "experience and pretense."

Voter turnout was high in the state, twice what it was in the 1996 GOP primary. But there were glitches in Greenville County, where some polling places were closed because, the Republican Party said, they simply couldn't find personnel to staff them. McCain forces said the closed polls were no accident, and demanded an investigation. Because some of those closed polling places were in largely black areas, the NAACP will look into the problems as well.

Bush aides said their candidate proved his mettle as a fighter in South Carolina, with the toughness necessary to withstand a strong challenge. But McCain advisers said Bush won with a ferocious negative assault, based largely on cynical distortions of McCain's record.

"I'm going to go full blast for the next 48 hours," Bush told a small but raucous crowd of early morning welcomers at his Grand Rapids hotel. "In two days, I'm convinced, we have a chance to continue what was started tonight in South Carolina, and that's the beginning of the end of the Clinton-Gore era in Washington D.C."

Flush with victory, Bush had additional reason for optimism two days before the primary in Michigan that is open to all of the state's 6.7 million registered voters.

A Detroit News poll released on Saturday showed Bush and McCain in a virtual dead heat. The survey of 600 "very likely" Michigan primary voters favored McCain 40 percent to 38 percent, but the results fell within the poll's margin of error.

Bush led by a wide margin in Michigan in January, but a survey released last week had McCain up by nine points. The Republican establishment in the state, led by Republican Gov. John M. Engler, backs Bush.

Michigan is considered a key battleground because it is the first test for the candidates in a large industrial state and a potential bellwether in the Midwest. If Bush wins in Michigan -- and his aides are clearly hoping for a big bounce from his South Carolina triumph -- McCain's challenge may well fade.

A Michigan victory would put Bush on track to effectively wrap up the nomination on Tuesday, March 7, when California, New York, Ohio and a dozen other states hold primaries. McCain said he would stay in the race at least until March 7.

Whatever happens, both candidates will slog through to Super Tuesday, but Bush may do so a little more cheerfully than McCain. As Bush assured supporters in his victory speech Saturday night, "Wcome roaring out of South Carolina with a new energy in this campaign."

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