John Edwards Wins South Carolina Primary

John Edwards won his native state of South Carolina and hoped for victory outside the South to slow Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry. The pair battled Wesley Clark in Oklahoma, the night’s pivotal state.

Clark, a retired Army general from Arkansas, needed a victory in neighboring Oklahoma to keep his candidacy alive. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s dim hopes hinged on Delaware, while fallen front-runner Howard Dean conceded in advance that he was likely to remain winless in the nominating campaign.

Edwards had said he must win South Carolina, and he did by dominating among voters who called the economy their biggest concern.

“We won South Carolina in a resounding fashion and won both the African-American and white vote in South Carolina, and we go from here to other states – Michigan, Virginia and Tennessee,” Edwards told The Associated Press. “It’s very easy to lay out the map to get us to the nomination.”

“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,” he said.

At stake were 269 pledged delegates – more than 10 percent of the 2,162 needed for the nomination – in Missouri (74), Arizona (55), South Carolina (45), Oklahoma (40), New Mexico (26), Delaware (15) and North Dakota (14).

In nearly every region of the nation, the most diverse group of Democrats yet to cast votes this primary season said they had a singular priority: Defeat President Bush this fall.

“I don’t care who wins” the Democratic primary, said Judy Donovan of Tuscon, Ariz. “I’d get my dog to run. I’m not kidding. I would get Mickey Mouse in there. Anybody but Bush.’”

Heading into the seven-state race, Kerry had 115 delegates to Dean’s 114. The other candidates lagged far behind. “I’m ready,” Kerry said in Arizona, before flying to Washington state which holds caucuses Saturday with Michigan.

Kerry is racking up endorsements as he tries to unite the party behind his front-running candidacy. To that end, the 1.2 million-member American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second largest teachers’ union, planned to back Kerry on Wednesday, a senior union official said on condition of anonymity.

While relieved to win South Carolina, Edwards hoped to upset Kerry in Oklahoma or elsewhere to emerge as the front-runner’s chief rival.

He scored well among whites, older people, the less-educated and voters who called themselves moderate or conservative, according to exit polls. Edwards split the black vote with Kerry, despite the Massachusetts senator’s high-profile endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s most influential black politician.

Clark’s supporters were braced for a bad night. “I think the general is about to meet Sitting Bull,” said David Paterson, Senate Minority Leader of the New York legislature and a Clark backer.

At Clark’s Oklahoma City headquarters, the candidate’s 34-year-old son, Wesley Clark Jr., told reporters he wanted his father to quit the race if he did not win Oklahoma.

“It’s really been disillusioning. You go out and see the way politics really works. It is a dirty business filled with a lot of people pretending to be a lot of things they are not,” Clark’s son said.

For the voters, nearly half of them in five states said they made up their minds within the last week. One in five waited until Tuesday to pick a candidate.

Nearly half the voters in South Carolina were black and nearly one in six in Arizona were Hispanic, the first contests with sizable minority populations in the primary campaign. In Missouri and Delaware, about 15 percent of the voters were black.

Kerry and Clark, both Vietnam veterans, had plenty of company. Seven in 10 Oklahoma voters, and nearly that many in South Carolina, said they had served in the military or have somebody in their households who did, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

Looking beyond Tuesday, Kerry planned visits in Washington state and Michigan, where polls show him leading Saturday’s caucuses. Edwards will skip ahead to Virginia and Tennessee, site of contests Feb. 10. Both campaigns plan to air ads in the two southern states.

Kerry plans to buy ad time in Washington, D.C., to reach Democratic-heavy northern Virginia, aides said. It’s an expensive market, and it was unclear whether Edwards would have the money to match Kerry ad-for-ad as he did in Tuesday’s states.

Dean plans to continue campaigning without a victory, and advisers privately acknowledged that his chances for a political revival were slim at best.

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.

On a deeply divided staff, some Dean aides were focused on raising money to cover campaign debts, an emphasis that gave a backseat to costly political tactics such as television commercials.

Democrats award delegates based on a candidates’ showing in congressional districts, giving Kerry’s rivals a chance to grab a few delegates even in states they lose.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, the candidates stuck closely to their messages: Kerry railed against special interests; Edwards highlighted his small-town upbringing; Clark flashed his four-star military resume; Lieberman promised a centrist alternative to his rivals’ liberal ways; and Dean cast himself as a Washington outsider.

But they took some jabs. Edwards and Dean criticized Kerry’s ties to lobbyists, ignoring their own connections to special interests. Clark accused Kerry of flip-flopping on affirmative action.

Kerry fought back without losing his cool. He questioned first-term Sen. Edwards’ electability and credentials, saying this is not the time for “on-the-job training.”

The race turns next to Michigan and Washington state, with a combined delegate total of 204. Maine, Tennessee, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Idaho and Utah hold primaries or caucuses before a mega-state showdown March 2.

That’s 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.

The last elections are June 8 in New Jersey and Montana, but Democrats hope to have a presumptive nominee in place well before then. Al Gore wrapped up the Democratic nomination in 2000 in early March, defeating Bill Bradley on a multistate election night. In that race, several weeks separated the New Hampshire primary, won by Gore, and the decisive contest in March.

Democratic leaders moved up several contests this primary season, hoping to unite the party behind a candidate early to challenge Bush, whose has raised at least $140 million.