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Kerry extends sweep to South, Clark bows out

"Anybody but Bush. I'd vote for the devil."

Charles Edwards, a Kerry supporter from Falls Church, Virginia

John Kerry vanquished his Southern-bred rivals in Virginia and Tennessee, all but unstoppable in his march toward the Democratic nomination with a Southern sweep that extended his dominance to every region of the country.

"Americans are voting for change -- East and West, North and now in the South," Kerry declared Tuesday to the roar of supporters in Fairfax, Virginia, chanting, "Kerry! Kerry!"

John Edwards, Wesley Clark and Howard Dean clung to the hope that Kerry would stumble on his own or by scandal, but party leaders began pressing for the nomination fight to end.

The fourth-term Massachusetts senator pocketed half the vote in Virginia -- with Edwards of North Carolina a poor second and Clark of Arkansas a far-distant third. Kerry crushed Edwards and Clark in Tennessee.

With two third-place finishes, Clark dropped out of the race.

Dean, the fallen front-runner, finished in single digits in Virginia and Tennessee, the latter the home state of political benefactor Al Gore. Dean had already retreated with his staggering campaign to Wisconsin, site of a Feb. 17 primary.

Edwards tells voters at every stop that he is the only candidate who could beat Texas-reared President George W. Bush in his own backyard, the South, yet he lost to a Massachusetts Brahmin. The freshman senator will remain in the race, aides said, pointing his troubled campaign to Wisconsin and March 2, when 10 delegate-rich states hold elections.

"We're going to have an election, not a coronation," Edwards told cheering supporters in Milwaukee.

With some Southern comfort, Kerry has won 12 of 14 contests -- seven by nearly half the vote -- on the East and West coasts, in the Midwest, the Great Plains and the Southwest.

Awash in confidence, Kerry planned to take yesterday and today off to nurse a cough and make telephone calls from home in Washington. He focused on Bush, not his party foes.

"The wreckage of the Bush economy is all around us," Kerry told supporters as some party elders said it was about time to rally behind a nominee.

"My hope is that the winnowing process begins right after tonight," said New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson.

Voters in the two states, like those in most of the first dozen contests, said the ability to defeat Bush was the top quality they sought in a candidate -- and they sided 6-to-1 with Kerry, according to exit polls.

"Anybody but Bush," said Charles Edwards, 50, of Falls Church, Virginia, who decided to vote for Kerry as he entered his voting booth. "I'd vote for the devil."

Bush's poll ratings have dropped amid questions about his use of US intelligence in deciding to go to war in Iraq.

"For more than three years, this administration has failed to tell the truth about their economic record," Kerry told supporters.

He said it's not up to him to decide whether his foes should stay in the race. Still, his every strategy was designed to dispatch his rivals with Tuesday's triumphs, victory next week in Wisconsin or a nail-in-the-coffin showing March 2.

"What we showed today is the mainstream values that I've been talking about, fairness and hope and hard work and love of country, are more important than boundaries and birthplace," the Massachusetts senator said.
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