NEW YORK, Aug 29 (AFP) - John McCain, a popular senator courted by both the Republicans and Democrats, was to give President George W. Bush a ringing endorsement on Monday`s opening day of the Republican national convention.
Despite a bruising primary battle against Bush in 2000 that savaged McCain`s character and ended his White House run, the maverick Arizona lawmaker was to hail Bush according to excerpts of his planned speech released Sunday.
"He has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our time, and I salute him. I salute his determination to make this world a better, safer, freer place," McCain said.
"He has not wavered, he has not flinched from the hard choices, he will not yield -- and neither will we."
The Democratic party of rival presidential hopeful John Kerry had also hoped to win McCain`s endorsement and flirted with the prospect of inviting him to join a cross-party ticket.
McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, did come to Kerry`s defence after a pro-Bush advert by Vietnam veterans challenged Kerry`s service in Vietnam.
But McCain, a Republican, pledged his political support to the incumbent president, who is facing anger from many Americans over the unpopular war in Iraq.
McCain said in the prepared remarks that Bush, who did not serve in combat during the Vietname war, was "the first to observe" that the armed forces paid the most sacrifices in Bush`s war on terror.
Bush has made the fight against terrorism the centrepiece of his re-election bid.
"An absence of complacency should not provoke an absence of confidence. What our enemies have sought to destroy is beyond their reach. It cannot be taken from us, it can only be surrendered," McCain said.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, widely admired for his handling of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, was also to address the convention Monday and heap praise on Bush.
"In times of danger, as we are now in, Americans should put leadership at the core of their decision," Giuliani said in his prepared remarks.
"George W. Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is and he will remain consistent to the purpose of defeating it while working to make us ever safer at home."