Edwards attacks Kerry ahead of Super Tuesday

FIGHTING against time and his inability to move to the top of polls in Super Tuesday states, John Edwards sharply attacked front-runner John Kerry as a Washington practitioner of politics as usual.

The North Carolina senator abandoned his mostly congenial style in a Democratic debate on Sunday in New York a mostly two-way face-off that had contenders Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton grousing about too little airtime.

Of 10 contests scheduled today, Mr Edwards already has virtually ceded the four New England states to Mr Kerry and stands little chance of victory in the biggest battlegrounds, New York and California, or in Maryland. That leaves Georgia, Ohio, Minnesota as his targets and polls show him trailing in all.

In Ohio, two major newspapers were divided in their endorsements. The Cincinnati Enquirer picked Mr Edwards, saying in a Sunday editorial that Mr Edwards's comments on the war with Iraq and the nation's military "do not dwell on the generally irrelevant issue of what he was doing in the 1960s".

The Plain Dealer in Cleveland said Monday that Mr Kerry's understanding of the nation's standing with other countries would make him a stronger nominee than Mr Edwards, who they described as "a work in progress" who "calls for bold solutions, but offers few".

Mr Edwards hopes to score multiple victories in the Super Tuesday states to keep his candidacy alive until March 9, when four southern states vote. But even his supporters say the odds are long, with his campaign's end seemingly near.

But on Sunday, his aim was to sharpen differences between himself and Mr Kerry, who has won 18 of 20 delegate-selection contests so far. Edwards has won only in his native South Carolina.

In his harshest criticism yet of the front-runner, Mr Edwards charged that Mr Kerry had voted for bad trade agreements and that his proposals on a range of issues, including health care, would "drive us deeper and deeper into deficit".

Returning fire, Mr Kerry, a 19-year Senate veteran, said the country needs a president with experience and "proven ability to be able to stand up and take on tough fights". The unmistakable suggestion was Mr Edwards, a first-term senator, has too little experience.

Polls show Mr Edwards trailing in all the states that vote today, and he faces increasing pressure to bow out if he can't turn it around.

He rejected the suggestion he was angling to become vice-president. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no. Far from it," he said. When Mr Kerry said he and Mr Edwards had the same position on trade, Mr Edwards ticked off a list of pacts with Singapore, Chile, Africa and the Caribbean that Mr Kerry voted for and he opposed.

Mr Kerry questioned how someone who served five years with him in Congress can call anybody a Washington insider. "That seems to me to be Washington, DC," he said in the debate sponsored by CBS and The New York Times.

The hour-long debate came two days before voters in 10 states award 1,151 pledged convention delegates more than half the 2,162 needed to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr Kerry has 688 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally, more than four times Mr Edwards' total.

Some of the biggest sparks of the debate flew between Al Sharpton and moderators Elizabeth Bumiller of the Times and the network's Dan Rather. Sharpton objected that he wasn't getting enough speaking time and said he would not "sit here and be window dressing".

Mr Kucinich, too, had to break into the conversation to make a point, once cutting off Mr Kerry to criticise Edwards on trade and tout his own positions. "No, this is my turn," he said.

Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe said he hoped to have a presumptive nominee in the next couple of weeks so he can begin to counter President Bush's multimillion-dollar ad barrage, which begins Thursday.