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GREENVILLE - US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney headed on Wednesday to South Carolina, where he trails his Republican rivals in a topsy-turvy White House race but hopes for a boost from a Michigan win focused on the economy.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and business executive, recovered from second-place finishes in the first two state nomination battles to deliver a strong Michigan win on Tuesday over his main rivals, John McCain and Mike Huckabee.
"It's a good start. I'm not making predictions about what's going to happen in every other state, but I'm feeling pretty darn good at this point," Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, said on NBC's Today show.
Romney, McCain and Huckabee each have won one of the first three significant contests to pick the Republican candidate who will compete in November's election to succeed President George W. Bush.
The focus now turns to South Carolina, where Republicans vote on Saturday in the first primary election in the South.
The Democratic presidential candidates - who had a largely friendly debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night - stayed in the West ahead of Saturday's contest in Nevada.
With the Iraq war receding from front pages, the economy has emerged as a potent issue amid voter concerns about high oil prices and the possibility of a recession over a housing market crisis.
Romney, the son of a popular former governor of Michigan, said as president he would help revive the state's auto industry just as he had saved companies and the troubled 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
McCain's campaign belittled Romney's win, noting his ties to the state and his extensive promises to help its struggling manufacturing base.
Michigan has the highest unemployment rate of any state at 7.4 per cent, nearly 3 points above the national average.
"The Michigan candidate won the Michigan primary," McCain strategist Steve Schmidt told reporters in Greenville, South Carolina. He labeled Romney's promises of economic help in Michigan "pandering" and said they would cost US$80 billion ($103.54 billion) to US$100 billion over five years.
The loss for McCain, he added, was "maybe a quarter step back and we'll probably be a step forward by the middle of the day."
Huckabee, who advocates an end to income tax in favor of a flat consumption tax, said the United States needed to defend its manufacturing sector and the government must help businesses by not raising taxes or regulatory burdens.
"The entrepreneurial spirit is the one thing that revives the economy," Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist pastor who hopes to capitalize in South Carolina on his strong appeal to conservative Christian voters, told CNBC.
McCain, an Arizona senator, leads Huckabee by 29 per cent to 23 per cent in South Carolina, with Romney in third place with 13 per cent, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
"I think the winner in South Carolina has the chance to catch the momentum and carry this through Super Tuesday," said Republican strategist Scott Reed, referring to primary elections in 22 states on February 5.
The leading Democratic contenders for the White House, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, promised during their debate in Nevada to end a damaging dispute over race.
Obama, who would be the first black president, and Clinton, who would be the first woman president, also focused on economic issues as they campaigned in Nevada on Wednesday.
McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, planned to emphasize his national security credentials in South Carolina, a state with deep ties to the US military.
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, making a possible last stand in South Carolina, hoped to convince the state's Republicans he is the true conservative choice.
"I think he's got probably more on the line than any of the rest of us going into this contest," Huckabee said of Thompson on the Fox News Channel.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who finished in single digits in Michigan, looked to hang on until Florida's contest on January 29, believing a win there will give him momentum ahead of "Super Tuesday" when his home state of New York is among the 22 states choosing their favorite candidates.
- REUTERS
