US hopefuls weigh running mates

Mr Obama has denied starting his search for a running-mate

US presidential candidate John McCain is to meet three Republicans who observers say are among those he is considering as possible running mates.

The person chosen would become vice-president should Mr McCain win the presidential election in November.

The move comes as the Associated Press news agency said Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama was making his own preparations to select a running mate.

He is still battling Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination.

Both Democratic hopefuls have been campaigning in Florida.

Mrs Clinton won the state's primary - held in January against party rules - and wants its delegates, who have been barred from the national convention in August, to be given seats.

At a town hall meeting at a synagogue in Florida, Mr Obama said, if elected president, he would continue to support Israel's security and not deal with the militant Palestinian movement Hamas unless it renounced terrorism.

Mr Obama is trying to court Jewish voters disappointed by his expressed willingness to negotiate with countries like Iran, say correspondents; he is not doing as well among Jewish voters as Mrs Clinton, they add.

'Social occasion'

Meanwhile, John McCain rejected the previous endorsement of a Texas evangelist preacher after an audio recording emerged of Reverend John Hagee saying that the Holocaust was God's way of getting the Jewish people "back to the land of Israel".

Mr McCain has invited Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Governor and one-time presidential candidate Mitt Romney to his Arizona home at the weekend.

Correspondents say the three men are high up on Mr McCain's list of possible vice-presidential candidates.

The McCain campaign denied that Mr McCain was holding the meetings with a view to selecting a running mate, saying the event was a purely social occasion.

'No comment'

Democratic party officials have told Associated Press that Mr Obama has privately asked Jim Johnson, the former CEO of government-sponsored mortgage company Fannie Mae, to head up a team to vet potential running mates.

Mr Johnson supervised similar operations for Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.

Mr Obama denied hiring Mr Johnson. "I'm not paying him any money. He is a friend of mine," he told AP.

He added: "I am not commenting on vice presidential matters because I have not won this nomination."

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton said that he was "not aware" of the New York senator undertaking a similar process.

But according to a report in Time magazine, Mrs Clinton's husband Bill is "pushing real hard" for Mr Obama to pick Mrs Clinton as his running mate, should he win the party's nomination.