WASHINGTON — John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, suspended his faltering presidential campaign.
"I must now stand aside, for our party and our country," Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. "If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sen. Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
Though Romney took Massachusetts in Tuesday's primary, McCain prevailed in most states, moving closer to the numbers needed to officially win the nomination.
Overall, McCain led with 707 delegates, to 294 for Romney and 195 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at this summer's convention in St. Paul, Minn.
-- Associated Press
Click here to read Romney's speech.
Local News
Romney quits campaign for president
- Local News
-
-
Health care law debated
About 100 city union members packed the Wiggin Auditorium in City Hall last night, as the Peabody City Council debated the merits of a new law that would curb the unions' ability to negotiate their health benefits.
-
Borders site is next chapter for auto dealer
DANVERS — Danvers-based Kelly Automotive Group is ramping up expansion plans along Route 114 in both Danvers and Peabody.
Kelly is mulling the creation of a two-story dealership out of the vacant former Borders Books and Music store on Andover Street in Peabody. The Danvers native and the company's president, Brian Kelly, acquired the property in December. -
Road race issue crosses finish line
SALEM — The City Council agreed last night to track and monitor Salem's many road races through creation of a master calendar.
Salem's volume of road races, and the fact that many of them run through the same sections of the city, had come under scrutiny by the council this winter. -
Salem businessman offers firsthand insight on Egypt
SALEM — David Williams, 55, had a good feeling when he was asked to go to Egypt as part of a team of Americans dedicated to teaching that country's new democrats just how politics works.
Today, he's less positive about a process that has seen revolution followed by elections and then, to his shock, the prosecution of Americans and others working to assist in the creation of a stable democracy. -
A Salem flag-raising in Afghanistan
SALEM — For Veterans Day, third-graders from the Witchcraft Heights School wrote letters to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The school has done this in the past, but this time was different. This time they sent them to a soldier from Salem, U.S. Army Pfc. Michael Levesque. - Body-moving case in court next month
- Hamilton looks to share emergency dispatch facility
- Chocolate and ice festival this weekend
- New trash rules boost recycling, officials say
- Police
- Police nab shoplifting suspect
- Ruling: city must pay cop
- 'Her name is going to change things'
- Salem State lands Valentine, Cooper for Speaker Series
- Peabody squelches mulch operation
- Rep tackles health care reform at chamber breakfast
- Peabody council to debate new health care law
- Town moves to solve dispatch center's space crunch
- Ipswich gets money for Farley Brook project
- School schedule changes, fees on agenda in Ipswich
- Teller blocks attempt to cash stolen checks
- police
- New Sox manager to speak at Salem State
- Keeping track of road races
- Ruckus over street crossing
- Vigil tonight remembers slain Peabody social worker
- DeFranco unabashedly liberal in Senate run
- Alternative school settles in at new home at the Gables
- High school to keep interim principal another year
- Driver undone by vanity plate
-
Health care law debated







