” I want to congratulate Governor Huckabee and his supporters on their success today. Not for the first time, he has surprised the rest of us….I salute you…And I want to congratulate Governor Romney as well on his wins today. He and I have been going at it pretty hard over the last few weeks, and he is a tough competitor….This election, like any election, is a rough and tumble business…But I have respect for people who are willing to accept the extraordinary demands, all the ups and downs, of such a tough and long contest. And Governor Romney has mine”

So said John McCain as he spoke to his supporters in Phoenix, Arizona. He arrived there earlier in the day .

He won New York, Arizona, Oklahoma, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, California and Missouri AND won delegates in numerous other states won by Romney and Huckabee.

Huckabee swept the southern states with little organization or money. He won his home state as well as Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama, with the help of evangelical voters, after gaining a victory in the West Virginia state convention early in the day.

He made it clear he was forging ahead:

“A lot of people have been trying to say that this is a two-man race,” Huckabee said in Little Rock Tuesday night. “Well, you know what — it is, and we’re in it.”

Romney’s wins included Massachusetts, along with North Dakota and Utah, where he got strong support from his fellow Mormons. He also won the Montana caucuses, Colorado and Minnesota. He too said the race was still on.

“We’re going to go all the way to the convention. We’re going to win this thing.”

The precise delegate count won’t be completed for a few days.

Hillary Clinton went to the country’s financial center to challenge Wall Street to step up and do its part to help fix the mortgage crisis it helped spark. Speaking at NASDAQ (which, technically, is in Times Square, not on Wall Street and is probably a friendlier venue than its downtown neighbor), Clinton put the blame for the explosion of foreclosures on a number of factors, but said “responsibility belongs to Wall Street, which not only enabled but often encouraged reckless mortgage lending.”

“Wall Street helped create the foreclosure crisis, and Wall Street needs to help solve it,” she said. She’s asking the Street to voluntarily:

1) institute a moratorium of at least 90 days on foreclosures of subprime, owner-occupied homes

2) Freeze the monthly rate on subprime adjustable rate mortgages for five years, or until the mortgages are converted to fixed rate loans.

3) provide status reports on the number loans it’s modifying. (watch the meat of her proposal below)

If the big lenders don’t step up, Clinton said she’d consider forcing them through legislation. For those that do volunteer: “I am prepared to consider giving legal protection to servicers and others who administer these loans and who do the right thing.”

The Bush administration is set to unveil its plan to fix the crisis tomorrow, which is said to be similar in calling for a 5 freeze on ARM rates — but Sen Clinton urged Wall Street not to wait on a call from the Treasury Secretary before taking action.

UPDATE: Sen Clinton is already expressing disappointment in the Bush plan, responding to early news reports that suggest the plan has been “whittled” to help a more narrow group of borrowers. “It seems that President Bush is going to give struggling homeowners far less than they need,” she said. Calling for the president to adopt her plan, she said “I look forward to the formal announcement of the Bush plan, but I fear that once again the Administration has let down the American middle class.”