John Kerry scores a sweep in the south

2.40pm - UPDATE

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry rolled to dominating wins in Virginia and Tennessee today, scoring a Southern sweep that could knock out at least one rival and put the nomination within reach.

Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, easily brushed aside two Southerners, Wesley Clark of Arkansas and John Edwards of North Carolina, to score his first wins in the South and prove he is a national candidate who can rally Democrats in every region of the country.

The sweep gave Kerry 12 wins in the first 14 contests in the race to find a challenger to President George W Bush, and appeared likely to knock at least Clark out of the race. It also set up a showdown next Tuesday in Wisconsin, where a Kerry victory could effectively end the race.

Clark, a retired general, and Edwards, a freshman senator, focused on Virginia and Tennessee all week in the hope they could score strong enough showings to propel them on to Wisconsin.

Edwards finished a distant second in Virginia, with Clark running third with less than 10 per cent with about 60 per cent of vote counted. Kerry was getting one of every two votes.

Edwards flew on to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to focus on the next test after lowering expectations all week to say he would be happy with finishes in the top two. He hopes to be the final challenger to Kerry after Wisconsin.

Clark also had promised to push on to Wisconsin no matter what happened on Tuesday, but was endangered by a poor finish in Tennessee, where he focused his campaign. His advisers were meeting on Tuesday night to determine whether he should go on.

A total of 151 delegates to July's nominating convention were at stake in Tennessee and Virginia.

Howard Dean, the one-time front-runner and former governor of Vermont, looked past the two Southern states to concentrate on Wisconsin, where he had promised to make a possible last stand against Kerry. But on Monday, the former Vermont governor said he would stay in the race past Wisconsin, win or lose.

On Tuesday he was not so sure again, acknowledging Wisconsin remains "a make-or-break state for us in many ways," and saying he was uncertain how the campaign would proceed if he lost. He promised not to wage a "quixotic campaign" and said he would back the eventual nominee.

Edwards and Clark skipped the weekend's contests in Michigan, Washington and Maine, all won by Kerry, to concentrate on Tennessee and Virginia after beating Kerry last week in South Carolina and Oklahoma, respectively.

Those are Kerry's only two losses on his drive to the nomination, and he has started looking ahead on the campaign trail to the fight with Bush.

He ignores his rivals and has concentrated his attacks on the president's economic leadership, his ties to special interests and his shifting justification for going to war in Iraq.

Kerry's opponents still hope something will derail his nonstop momentum and give them a chance, although neither Clark nor Edwards has shown much interest in attacking him on the campaign trail.

Even after the Wisconsin primary, which could amount to a final showdown with Kerry, about 75 per cent of the 4322 delegates will remain to be chosen.

That could leave the door open for an opponent who survives Wisconsin to make a final charge against Kerry heading into March 2 primaries in big states like California, New York and Ohio.

- REUTERS