McCain courts conservatives as Super Tuesday looms

By Steve Holland

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain sought to win over skeptical conservatives on Friday as the crucial "Super Tuesday" coast-to-coast nominating contest loomed.

Buoyed by a string of high-profile endorsements, including one from the Los Angeles Times, the Republican front-runner released a television ad touting his commitment to conservative principles in a bid to pull the party's traditional base of support from rival Mitt Romney.

Tuesday is the biggest day on the U.S. electoral calendar for choosing Republican and Democratic candidates for the November presidential election, with contests in 24 different states in all parts of the country.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama also won the endorsement of the Times newspaper, and he picked up the backing of the liberal grass-roots organization MoveOn.org and the California chapter of the Service Employees International Union.

The two groups, which together claim nearly 4 million members, could give the Illinois senator organizational muscle as he seeks to close the gap with his better-known rival Hillary Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady.

Polls show Clinton leading Obama, who would be the first black president, in California, New York, New Jersey and many other states that will be up for grabs on Super Tuesday.

One day after a cordial debate during which the two largely directed their attacks at McCain, both Clinton and Obama seized on new data showing a drop in U.S. employment to tout their stimulus plans and take a swipe at President George W. Bush.

"Today's report that our economy actually lost jobs in January confirms my view that we are sliding into a second Bush recession," Clinton said.

McCain said the worsening economic picture showed that Congress should make the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2001 and 2003 permanent rather than letting them expire as scheduled in 2010. The Arizona senator voted against those tax cuts at the time, angering conservatives.

Obama criticized McCain's stance at a campaign event in Albuquerque.

"There was a time when Sen. McCain courageously defied the fiscal madness of massive tax cuts for the wealthy in the midst of a costly war," Obama said. "But that was before he started running for the Republican nomination and fell in line."

Romney said his success in the business world made him the best choice to run the country in difficult economic times and cast himself as a successor to conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who inherited a sick economy when he took office in 1981.

"He lifted us at a critical time and I will do the same thing," the former Massachusetts governor told a crowd at a Denver car dealership.

McCain also sought to identify himself with Reagan in a television ad touting his conservative stances on economic, social and national security issues.

"I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution," McCain said in the ad.