McCain sees many problems facing next president

By Steve Holland

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - Republican candidate John McCain on Thursday outlined a litany of problems the next U.S. president will inherit from George W. Bush and said Washington needed a new approach to solving them.

McCain made no mention of Bush in a speech as part of a weeklong "Service to America" tour, and aides said he was not trying to distance himself from the president, who remains popular with the Republican base in his final year in office.

But McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, did appear to raise some questions about how policy has been handled by both Bush and the U.S. Congress in recent years.

"To keep our nation prosperous, strong and growing we have to rethink, reform and reinvent," the Arizona senator said.

While McCain looks ahead and past the November election, Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are engaged in a contentious fight over their party's nomination, with Pennsylvania's April 22 vote providing the next touchstone in that battle.

Obama, an Illinois senator, scored a public relations victory by reporting he raised more than $40 million (20 million pounds) in campaign cash in March, double what Clinton raised in the same month.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson played down the Obama announcement, saying, "We knew that he was going to outraise us" and that the New York senator would have the resources she needs to be competitive.

Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said he would not accept a vice presidential nomination if offered to him. He was the vice presidential running mate to John Kerry in Kerry's losing 2004 bid.