Kerry Romps, Rivals Stagger

John Kerry's three-state weekend rout, capped by his coast to victory in Maine, pushed him closer to the Democratic nomination and left his rivals scrambling to find a way to stop the front-runner.

Boasting a daunting record of 10 wins in 12 contests, Kerry focused on the next round — Tuesday's primaries in Virginia and Tennessee — and the opportunity for the Massachusetts senator to show his clout in the South.

Rivals John Edwards and Wesley Clark, the two Southerners in the race, talked of populist themes in hopes of making inroads with voters in the two states that offer 151 pledged delegates and, more important, continued survival in the Democratic race.

Neither Edwards nor Clark — nor one-time front-runner Howard Dean — could match Kerry's advantage in Maine, which held its caucuses Sunday with 24 delegates at stake.

Kerry outpaced Dean by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in the state, with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio a distant third. Dean and Kucinich had made 11th-hour appeals to Maine voters. The win there came after Kerry's triumphs in Michigan and Washington state a day earlier.

Kerry has more than twice as many delegates as his closest pursuer, as his win in Maine pushed his total to 426, compared with Dean's 184, according to an Associated Press tally. It takes 2,162 delegates to win the nomination. Kucinich appeared to fall just short of qualifying for delegates in Maine.

Kerry's winning streak is beginning to demoralize his opponents. Aides to both Clark and Edwards said they expect their candidates to lose Tuesday in Virginia and Tennessee.

Polls by the American Research Group show Kerry with solid leads in both states, with Edwards and Clark battling for second.

A survey conducted Feb. 4-6 in Tennessee, in which 600 voters were interviewed and the margin of error was four percentage points, showed Kerry with 32 percent to Edwards' 21 percent and Clark's 20 percent. A similar poll in Virginia showed Kerry with 35 percent to 22 percent for Edwards and 17 percent to Clark.

Edwards' advisers concede Kerry probably will win both states. Their goal is to knock Clark out of the race, and head to Wisconsin as Kerry's main competitor.

That Feb. 17 showdown in Wisconsin could be a last stand for Kerry's rivals. But an American Research Group poll shows Kerry is in charge there, too, with 41 percent in the latest poll, a survey of 600 voters conducted Feb. 4-6 with a 4-point margin of error. Clark trailed with 15 percent, Edwards with 10 percent and Dean with 9 percent.

All three challengers on Sunday vowed they would continue to challenge Kerry..

"Real voters are going to decide who the nominee is," Dean, a former Vermont governor, said on CNN.

Dean, winless since the start of voting, declined in interviews to repeat his earlier assertion that he would withdraw from the race if he lost Wisconsin. He planned to begin airing a 60-second biographical ad in Wisconsin that describes him as a maverick and focuses on his medical and gubernatorial background.

But in bad news for Dean, The New York Times reported that one of the major unions that endorsed him, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was withdrawing support for him.

Clark said on CNN that he would run at least through the March 2 "Super Tuesday" primaries, including in California, Ohio and New York.

"First of all, I don't put too much stock in the polls," Clark said. "The polls are being driven a lot by the national media sense of momentum and inevitability. It's not inevitable."

Edwards noted on Fox News that some 75 percent of delegates to the Democratic National Convention will still be up for grabs after Wisconsin votes.

Looking beyond his Democratic rivals to a match-up with the incumbent president, Kerry issued a statement after his Maine victory in which he vowed that, "when the Republican smear machine trots out the same old attacks in this election, this is one Democrat who will fight back. I've fought for my country my entire life, and I'm not about to back down now."

Kerry ignored his primary opponents Sunday and criticized President Bush on Iraq. He also picked up backing from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

Accepting Warner's endorsement in Richmond, Kerry said Mr. Bush had not fully answered questions about whether he fulfilled his National Guard service in Alabama during the Vietnam War.

"The issue here is, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and active in Alabama at the time he was supposed to be," said Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran. "I don't have the answer to that question and just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question."

In an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC, Mr. Bush said he reported for duty and that his critics were wrong.

Kerry, who watched Mr. Bush's interview with Warner at the governor's mansion, also took issue with the president for saying that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction.