Kerry forges ahead with two election wins

Democratic front-runner John Kerry scored victories in the Idaho caucuses and Utah primaries, and looked ahead to more good fortune in the Hawaii contest, the last before a climactic 10-state round next week.

Kerry outpaced North Carolina Senator John Edwards 68% to 20% with more than half the results in from the Idaho race yesterday. With three-quarters of the precincts reporting from Utah, Kerry led Edwards 54-30.

Kerry held a large and growing lead in the Democratic delegatechase, with 632 to 190 for Edwards, going into the night’s three contests. A total of 61 delegates were at stake.

But the Democratic candidates are putting their energies on the coming Super Tuesday prizes, and Kerry is already looking beyond the nomination fight and tangling with Bush.

The fourth-term Massachusetts senator fired back at Bush earlier in the day, depicting him as a “walking contradiction” who has presided over job losses, a deficit increase and frayed international alliances despite promises to the contrary.

Bush had opened up on him a day before in his most partisan remarks of the campaign. Bush, without naming Kerry, ridiculed him as a politician who has held opposing positions on tax cuts, NAFTA, the war with Iraq and more.

Bush also sought to cast the election as a choice between “keeping the tax relief that’s moving the economy forward, or putting the burden of higher taxes back on the American people”.

Kerry responded, saying: “Last night was almost a fantasy speech about a world that doesn’t exist for most Americans.

“The president talked about a prosperity that millions of Americans are not seeing, feeling or living.”

Yesterday, Bush used the White House as the backdrop for an appeal for passage of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, a move certain to please his conservative Republican base.

“A few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilisation,” said the president, referring to a recent court opinion in Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts and a decision by city officials in San Francisco to issue same-sex marriage licences.

Both Kerry and Edwards promptly accused the president of playing politics with the Constitution – a charge the White House denied. The two Democrats said they oppose gay marriage, but would vote against the amendment if it was brought before the Senate.