Already flush with endorsements from establishment Democrats, presidential front-runner John Kerry is poised to secure the backing of former rival Dick Gephardt and his once-loyal labor unions, further clearing the Massachusetts senator's path toward the nomination.þþHis opponents, meanwhile, are seeking to slow his rapid rise and establish themselves as his alternative. A fallen Howard Dean is camping out in Wisconsin with hopes of resurrecting his struggling campaign. And, sons of the South, John Edwards and Wesley Clark, are stumping in that region.þþ``Kerry has the momentum because he looks like a winner. He looks like a winner because he's been winning,'' said Ron Kaufman, former adviser to former President George H.W. Bush.þþThe upcoming campaign calendar likely will heap even more momentum and more delegates onto Kerry as well. His rivals haven't made much of an effort in Michigan, Washington or Maine, where contests this weekend offer 228 delegates combined.þþEdwards, who won South Carolina's primary, and Clark, who found victory in Oklahoma, both looked to Tuesday's primaries in Tennessee and Virginia, with 151 delegates, to keep Kerry winless in the South and keep their own candidacies alive.þþOn Friday, Edwards planned a bus tour of Virginia before heading to Tennessee, where Clark also planned to travel. Kerry was set to show up in that state as well after visiting Michigan.þþDean, meanwhile, is staying in Wisconsin -- except for a brief sojourn to his Burlington, Vt. headquarters -- to execute his last-ditch strategy. On Thursday, he cut short a day of campaigning in Michigan to fly to Wisconsin. He told supporters in an e-mail that he would be out of the race for the Democratic nomination if he did not score a victory in the Wisconsin primary.þþ``We must win Wisconsin,'' Dean wrote in the e-mail. ``A win there will carry us to the big states of March 2 and narrow the field to two candidates. Anything less will put us out of this race.''þþThe four candidates are positioning themselves for a Feb. 17 showdown in Wisconsin, but Kerry has the most money coming in and supporters on board. On Thursday, he picked up endorsements of Maine Gov. John Baldacci and former Sen. George Mitchell. In Michigan, Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow agreed to support him.þþOfficials said Gephardt would announce his backing of Kerry on Friday in Warren, Mich. They said the alliance of labor groups formed by the Teamsters and more than a dozen industrial unions to support Gephardt's failed White House bid likely would follow in several days after union presidents brief their members.þþCampaigning in Tennessee, Edwards dismissed Gephardt's endorsement, saying ``if you look at the history of endorsements in this campaign, they haven't had a lot of sway with voters, which is understandable. Voters make their own decisions.''þþHe also nipped back at Clark, who earlier this week accused Edwards of hypocrisy for criticizing while campaigning proposals he voted for in the Senate -- education reform, the Patriot Act and the Iraq war.þþ``This is the kind of petty sniping that people are sick of and my campaign is about something bigger and stronger,'' Edwards said. ``I think what General Clark should be talking about is what he wants to do for the country.''þþClark, too, was in Tennessee, a first-time candidate struggling to explain the latest in a series of changing comments on abortion.þþ``What I said is that I'm in favor of choice...'' he told reporters. ... ``I would hope that it would be done only on rare occasions, but it's a woman's right to choose.''þþOn Wednesday, Clark said, ``I'm against abortion, but there's the law of the land and that comes from the Supreme Court ... and I support the Supreme Court.''þþEarlier this winter, he told a New Hampshire newspaper he opposed any government restriction on abortion. He later amended that to say he supported the high court's 1973 ruling that guaranteed abortion rights, as well as a subsequent case that allowed states to limit them.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
