Gephardt backs Kerry, Clark on the attack

By JOHN WHITESIDES Political Correspondent

WARREN, Michigan - Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry won the backing in Michigan on Friday of former rival Richard Gephardt, while two of Kerry's top opponents bickered in the South over support for veterans.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards extended their war of words for a third day ahead of Tuesday's contests in Virginia and Tennessee, which could determine which one of them advances in the race to find a challenger to President Bush.

Fading former front-runner Howard Dean, meanwhile, tried to raise enough money from his grass-roots supporters to buy television advertising in Wisconsin, which holds a Feb. 17 primary that could be the former Vermont governor's last stand.

Kerry and Gephardt, a Missouri congressman who exited the race after a woeful fourth-place finish in Iowa, clasped hands at a Michigan rally on the eve of the state's caucuses and promised to work together to evict Bush from the White House.

"We need a leader who can go toe-to-toe with George Bush in these difficult, dangerous times on national security," Gephardt told several hundred union workers in Warren, a suburb of Detroit.

The endorsement from Gephardt, who planned to campaign with Kerry for the rest of the day, was another shot of good news for the Massachusetts senator's surging campaign, which moves to Michigan and Washington state on Saturday, Maine on Sunday and Virginia and Tennessee on Tuesday.

Clark, the former NATO commander who has made an appeal to veterans one of his cornerstones, accused Edwards of three votes in the Senate against veterans health care.

"When it came to decide between special interests and veterans, Sen. Edwards blinked and he didn't support our veterans when the going got tough," Clark said in Tennessee.

The Edwards campaign denied the accusation. "This is what politicians do when they are losing -- they dip into the gutter and throw whatever they find, whether it is true or not," spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.

GOES AFTER EDWARDS AND KERRY

Clark has accused Edwards and Kerry over the last two days of hypocrisy, saying they voted to support Bush in the Senate and then criticised him on the campaign trail. Edwards termed the charges "petty sniping."

Clark also criticised Kerry on Friday for saying last year that a Democrat could win the White House without winning a Southern state. No Democrat has ever won without a victory in the South.

Former Vice President Al Gore "would have been a president had he carried a single state in the South," Clark said. Gore did not even win his home state of Tennessee in the 2000 race against Bush.

Aides to Dean, who asked supporters for donations on Thursday by claiming he would be out of the race without a win in Wisconsin, said supporters had donated nearly $900,000 since the plea.

Dean, who squandered a big lead in polls and a Democratic record $41 million in losses to Kerry in Iowa and New Hampshire, finished no better than third in any of the seven contests last Tuesday.

Gephardt's backing for Kerry was expected to lead to his endorsement by a coalition of labour unions that supported Gephardt, with an announcement likely within the next week after union leaders conferred with members.

Kerry, who has seized command of the race with wins in seven of the first nine contests, has a huge lead in polls in Michigan, the largest state up for grabs until California and New York chime in on the race on March 2.

He promised union workers at the Warren rally that he would work for fairer trade agreements, an end to the loss of jobs to foreign countries and a reversal of what he said was the growing influence of special interests in government.

He mocked the "mission accomplished" banner hung last year when Bush landed on an aircraft carrier to claim an end to major combat in Iraq.

"If you're a real American, it's not only not mission accomplished, it's mission abandoned," Kerry said.

- REUTERS