page_title: John McCain 2008 presidential campaign
section_title: Super Tuesday
hierarchical_section_title: John McCain 2008 presidential campaign / Caucuses and primaries 2008 / Super Tuesday
caption_attribution_description: John McCain celebrates Super Tuesday (February 5, 2008) primary victories at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix, AZ.
context_page_description: The 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain, the longtime senior U.S. Senator from Arizona, was launched with an informal announcement on February 28, 2007, during a live taping of the Late Show with David Letterman, and formally launched at an event on April 25, 2007. His second candidacy for the Presidency of the United States, he had previously run for his party's nomination in the 2000 primaries and was considered as a potential running mate for his party's nominee, then-Governor George W. Bush of Texas. After winning a majority of delegates in the Republican primaries of 2008, on August 29, leading up to the convention, McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate for Vice President. Five days later, at the 2008 Republican National Convention, McCain was formally selected as the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election.
  McCain began the campaign as the apparent frontrunner among Republicans, with a strategy of appearing as the establishment, inevitable candidate; his campaign website featured an Associated Press article describing him as "[a] political celebrity".
context_section_description: After Florida, the campaigns focused their attention on the 21 states voting on February 5, known as Super Tuesday. McCain was seen as the front-runner for the nomination heading in to this most important of primary dates. He had the lead in delegates to the national convention, and on January 30 he was officially endorsed by the withdrawing Giuliani. The candidates sparred at a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on January 30, with former First Lady Nancy Reagan present in the front row. The most heated exchange came as Romney accused McCain of dirty tricks in his misleading Florida statements about Romney having proposed an Iraq withdrawal timetable.
  On January 31, McCain received the important endorsement of Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and began campaigning with him; Schwarzenegger had previously refrained from endorsing either McCain or Giuliani because he counted both men as friends. The same day, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, formerly a supporter of Giuliani, threw his support behind McCain as well. Meanwhile, Romney, still burning about McCain's misleading Iraq withdrawal timetable charge, compared McCain to disgraced former President Richard Nixon, saying that McCain's claim was "reminiscent of the Nixon era" and that "I don't think I want to see our party go back to that kind of campaigning."
  McCain won his home state of Arizona, taking all 53 of the state's delegates, and won too the largest of the Super Tuesday prizes, garnering nearly all of California's 173 delegates. McCain also scored wins in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma.
caption: McCain reacts to his Super Tuesday victories during a celebration that night at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix
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