Kerry wins in Southern states as Clark puts end to campaign

WASHINGTON -- John Kerry vanquished his Dixie-bred rivals in Virginia and Tennessee on Tuesday, 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 to the roar of supporters in Fairfax, Va., chanting, "Kerry! Kerry!"

John Edwards, Wesley Clark and Howard Dean clung quixotically 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.

Third place twice

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 Bush in his own backyard, the South, yet he lost to a Massachusetts Brahmin in Dixie. 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.

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 Wednesday and Thursday off to nurse a cough and make telephone calls from home in Washington. He focused on Bush, not his party foes.

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

With 99 percent of the vote in Virginia, Kerry had 52 percent, Edwards 27 percent, Clark 9 percent, Dean 7 percent, Al Sharpton 3 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio 1 percent. In Tennessee, with 96 percent reporting, Kerry had 41 percent, Edwards 27 percent, Clark 23 percent, Dean 4 percent and Sharpton 2 percent.

Virginia and Tennessee had 151 delegates at stake.

An AP analysis shows Kerry has piled up more than twice as many delegates as his closest pursuer. Counting results from Tuesday's races, Kerry has 507 delegates to Dean's 182, with Edwards at 163 and Clark at 96. A total of 2,162 are needed to nominate.

Kerry finished strong across all demographic groups and regions, with one potential weakness as he looks toward a general election race in the South: He finished first among white voters, but didn't fare as well as he did among black voters, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

Eight in 10 voters said they were angry or dissatisfied with Bush, and Kerry finished strong among them.

"I like the fact that he's a war hero," said Celia Ambrester, 69, of Knoxville, Tenn. Kerry won three Purple hearts, one Bronze star and one Silver star in Vietnam. "We need someone in office who's been in war and knows the issues."

For Edwards, Clark and Dean, the temptation to stay in the race is strong because the front-runner has not been tested by scandal or miscues thus far in the primary season. Kerry's foes also point out that the crowded election schedule has not left much time for voters to take a second look at the front-runner.

Some voters were already looking. Bob Casey, 68, of Memphis, Tenn., sided with Clark after calling Kerry a liberal "from back East." Eugene Robinson, 32, of Richmond, Va., voted for Clark because "he wasn't some smarmy politician who was ready to talk about all the laws he's passed and all the committees he's been on."

Though both Clark, Edwards and Dean have denied any interest in a vice presidential nomination, their future viability may come into play as they decide how long and hard to fight Kerry.

Picks up, 17th graf, 'Throughout the,' a0727