Romney will endorse McCain

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will endorse Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, several media outlets reported this morning.

Romney, who was forced out of the presidential race after losing several key primaries, is expected to throw his support to McCain at a news conference in Boston. The Associated Press was the first to report the endorsement.

McCain has been the overwhelming leader in the GOP race since Romney’s departure. But Romney’s move is a key step in uniting the GOP for November.

Romney is more acceptable to the party’s conservative wing, which has questioned McCain’s credentials.

Buoyed by positive polls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today lashed out at special interests while Sen. Barack Obama, her principal opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced a key endorsement in Rhode Island.

In one of the ironies so common as politicians fly from state to state in this presidential campaigning season, McCain was to visit Rhode Island, where a former colleague this morning threw his support behind Obama.

Former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee announced his support for Obama, saying he supported the Illinois Democrat’s opposition to the war in Iraq.

Chafee, who left the GOP to become an independent last year, was the only Republican senator to vote against the Iraq war. He lost his seat in 2006 to a Democrat.

Chafee, who was appointed to the Senate in 1999 when his father, Sen. John Chafee died, won election in 2000. He was considered part of the liberal wing of the GOP.

Chafee is a visiting fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

Rhode Island holds its primary March 4, the same day as primaries in Texas, Ohio and Vermont.

Obama had no public appearances scheduled for today, leaving the field to Clinton who campaigned in Ohio.

michael.muskal@latimes.com