Kerry concentrates fire-power on Bush

By DAVID USBORNE in New York

Senator John Kerry barnstormed through three major cities today on the eve of the crucial 'Super-Tuesday' primary contests in ten states tomorrow, including New York and California, which could make or break the struggling campaign of his only remaining serious rival, Senator John Edwards.

At stake are more than half of the delegates to the Democratic Party's nominating convention in Boston this summer.

Senator Kerry, who has bagged 18 of the 20 states that have held primaries, already has four times the number of delegates garnered by Senator Edwards.

Polls suggested that Senator Edwards may fail to win any of the ten states voting tomorrow, which could doom his presidential run.

Last night, Senator Kerry was all but ignoring his rival, concentrating his fire-power on President Bush.

"This isn't going to be one of those mealy-mouthed campaigns where we just walk around the country and people can't tell the difference," Senator Kerry bellowed at a rally at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

He travelled later to Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio.

Democrat officials are hoping that today's voting will make the nomination of Senator Kerry a foregone conclusion so that they can change gear and switch their energies to combating President Bush, whose campaign is due to launch a multi-billion blitz of television advertisements on Thursday.

Most analysts agree that Senator Edwards needs to win at least one state to keep his run alive. His campaign is hoping to cling on through today to enable the Senator to compete in three southern states which hold primaries in one week's time. His only primary win so far has been in South Carolina.

Senator Edwards, who abandoned his normally courteous tone towards his rival in a last pre-Super-Tuesday debate in New York on Sunday, was pinning his best hopes on Ohio, Atlanta and Minnesota. But even in those states, polls showed him trailing Senator Kerry.

A new Ohio poll by the marketing group InsiderAdvantage showed Senator Kerry trouncing his rival by 53 per cent to 20 per cent.

In the Sunday debate, Senator Edwards tried to douse talk that he is gunning to become Senator Kerry's running mate. Recent polls have shown that a Kerry-Edwards ticket could handsomely defeat a Bush-Cheney team. When asked about that prospect, he fired back, "Oh no. Oh no, no. Far from it".

He seemed anxious to underline his point by making uncharacteristically harsh jabs at the front-runner, arguing that Senator Kerry had voted for bad trade agreements for Americans and that his proposals on issues ranging from health care to education would "drive us deeper and deeper into deficit".

But returning fire, Senator Kerry, a 19-year veteran of Washington, highlighted the relative inexperience of his rival, who has only done one term in the US Senate.

What the US needed he said, was someone with a "proven ability to stand up and take on tough fights".

Boosting Senator Kerry last night were endorsements from both the Baltimore Sun in Maryland and the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. The Sun said that the Oval Office was "no place for a novice".

In its endorsement, the Plain Dealer said it was picking Senator Kerry because of his "obvious understanding of the world's complexities and their effects on America".

Senator Kerry played down talk of his wrapping up the nomination tomorrow, however. "I consider myself in a fight for the nomination, a fight that could well beyond Tuesday, he told a Boston television station. "This is a contested race, so I'm fighting in every state and I'm campaigning hard after Super Tuesday."

By week's end, however, Senator Kerry may be facing fiercer fire from President Bush than from his Democrat rival.

The president's campaign has already budgeted at least $4.5 million for his first major blitz of television advertisements, all of them targeted on national cable stations, including CNN. It is the first time a presidential campaign has chosen cable channels over the traditional broadcast networks.

The bulk of the Bush spots, aimed at shoring his Republican base, will air on the Fox News Network, which is mostly regarded as having a mostly conservative bent.

He is also expected to favour sporting networks, in the hope of targeting young, mostly conservative, white male voters.

- INDEPENDENT