No Rest For The Winners

The race for the Democratic nomination shifted Wednesday to Maine, Michigan and beyond, as John Kerry and his chief rivals hastily moved from celebrating victory to fighting the next primary battle.

A night after Kerry swept to victory in five states, and John Edwards and Wesley Clark survived with key wins in a state each, most of the candidates were on the move. The race narrowed as Joe Lieberman departed. Howard Dean tried to keep his candidacy afloat.

The race turns next to Michigan and Washington state on Saturday, with a combined delegate total of 204. Maine votes Sunday, and Tennessee and Virginia go to the polls on Tuesday.

Kerry arrived in Boston shortly after sunrise and planned to spend the day at his home. He also was expected to collect the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers, the country's second largest teachers' union. On Thursday, he was off to Maine and Michigan.

Aides said Clark would scale back plans to compete in Virginia to concentrate on Tennessee, where he was headed Wednesday. He will face strong competition in the state from Edwards.

Edwards planned to spend most of his time in the coming days in Tennessee and Virginia.

The District of Columbia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Idaho and Utah hold primaries or caucuses before a mega-state showdown March 2, when delegate-rich California, Georgia, New York and Ohio join six other states for primaries or caucuses. Party leaders expect the nomination to be wrapped up by March 9, when Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas vote.

Kerry recorded wins Tuesday in Missouri, Delaware, New Mexico, North Dakota and Arizona. Edwards kept his campaign alive with a solid win in his native South Carolina, while Clark eked out his first win of the primary season, beating Edwards by just a few hundred votes in Oklahoma. Dean was shut out along with Lieberman.

Steve Murphy, who was campaign manager for Rep. Dick Gephardt, an early casualty in the race, said after Tuesday's voting: "The only question is who is going to be the last man standing" against Kerry.

Kerry said he was "stunned" by the scope of his victories and called the night a big success, despite finishing second to Edwards in South Carolina.

"I compliment John Edwards but I think you have to run a national campaign, and I think that's the strength we have shown tonight," Kerry said. "You can't cherry-pick the presidency."

Edwards had said he must win South Carolina – and he did, capturing 46 percent of the vote to 30 percent for Kerry.

"I think tonight I proved that I can win the White House and change the country in a way that strengthens the millions of middle-class families that Bush has forgotten, and lift up the 35 million Americans who live in poverty," Edwards said.

Missouri and Arizona were the night's biggest prizes, with 129 delegates at stake – nearly half of the 269 delegates up for grabs Tuesday.

Tuesday's results pushed Kerry's delegate total to 255 out of the 2,162 needed for the nomination, including the superdelegates of lawmakers and party traditionalists. Dean was next with 156, followed by Edwards at 111, Clark at 96 and Lieberman at 25. Rev. Al Sharpton had 4 and Dennis Kucinich 2.

According to CBS News exit polls in five states, Kerry's perceived viability against President Bush in November continued to be his strong suit.

Republican operatives, looking ahead to a Bush-Kerry matchup, are trying to paint the Massachusetts senator as an establishment liberal. Kerry told CBS News Anchor Dan Rather that his record trumps that label.

"I think that the American people want experience. I think they want somebody who can actually show a 35-year record of fighting against powerful interests," Kerry said.

Overwhelming majorities of voters – even those supporting other candidates – expressed satisfaction with the prospect of a Kerry nomination.

In the meantime, polls suggest Edwards emerged as Kerry's biggest challenger on the strength of his perceived empathy with voters, and on the issue of the economy and jobs.

In an interview with the CBS News Early Show on Wednesday, Edwards stressed his modest upbringing The multimillionaire trial lawyer often talks of his working class roots.

"You know, when I talk about the effect of trade and the factories closing across America, I've lived it," he said. "I have seen it up close. I come from a family where my father worked in a mill all his life."

And Clark had a strong showing in Oklahoma by appealing to a broad spectrum of voters there, and benefiting from his military experience among voters concerned with national security and the war in Iraq.

As the votes were being counted in Oklahoma, Clark mused about the future of his candidacy. "This could be over," he told reporters. "It could be a long way from over, and it could be impacted tomorrow by something we don't know about."

Dean, the former Vermont governor, ran out of cash and momentum after finishing third in Iowa and a distant second in New Hampshire. He ran no TV ads in the seven states and intended to stay off the air for a spate of other contests until Feb. 17, when Wisconsin votes.

"We're going to have a tough night," Dean told supporters as he promised to keep "going and going and going and going just like the Energizer bunny."

Lieberman announced he was ending his presidential bid after failing to rack up a single state win. The death knell came Tuesday night, when — in his must-win state of Delaware — he finished a distant second, with 11 percent of the vote. Kerry received 50 percent.

"Am I disappointed? Naturally. But am I proud of what we stood for in this campaign? You bet I am," he told supporters in Arlington, Va. as strains of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" played.