Kerry set to battle Bush for White House

Vietnam war hero John Kerry today emerged as the man who will challenge George W Bush for the White House at the presidential election.

Senator Kerry clinched victory after his only credible rival, Senator John Edwards, prepared to pull out of the race for the Democratic nomination.

Mr Edwards was expected to concede defeat today after Mr Kerry made a strong performance on “Super Tuesday”, when voters in 10 states selected their favourite candidate.

As Mr Kerry’s triumphs emerged, President Bush telephoned to congratulate him. Mr Bush was quoted as saying: “I’m thinking about you.”

The pair will go head-to-head in the presidential election in November.

Mr Kerry, his voice struggling after weeks of campaigning, said in his victory speech: “The message could not be clearer. All across our country change is coming to America.

“I believe that in 2004 – with one united Democratic Party – we can and we will win this election.”

The Massachusetts senator said he was ready for a fight with the Republican Party and with President Bush who has amassed an election war chest of a reported 100 million US dollars.

In the speech, watched by millions of Americans, Mr Kerry attacked Mr Bush on foreign policy and homeland security.

He said: “On behalf of all Americans and on behalf of the other 96% of humankind waiting for leadership from the United States, we will rejoin the community of nations and we will renew our alliances and we will build new alliance because they are essential to the final victory and success of the war on terror.

“The Bush Administration has run the most inept, reckless, arrogant and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country and we will reverse that.

“If George Bush wants to make national security the central issue of the campaign of 2004, I have three words for him, and I know he understands – bring it on.”

He added: “So the message rings out across the land tonight. Get ready, a new day is on the way.”

Attention will now turn to who Mr Kerry will select as his running mate.

Mr Kerry said Mr Edwards, from North Carolina, had “great promise for leadership for the years to come”, calling him a “valiant champion of the values for which our party stands”.

But there was no hint whether he would select the 50-year-old as his running mate.

Earlier, Democratic Party sources said Mr Edwards had decided to drop out of the race and he was expected to make a formal announcement later today in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Mr Edwards is a Southern politician in the Bill Clinton mould, a youthful moderate of modest background whose charisma and looks gained more attention than his policies at first.

He came to politics in mid-life, running for the US Senate from North Carolina in 1998 after earning millions of dollars as a trial lawyer.

Mr Edwards’s upbringing was a central theme to his populist message. He announced his candidacy in September in front of the empty textile mill where his father once worked.

Mr Kerry clinched Super Tuesday victories in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Georgia, Ohio, New York and Rhode Island.

All the indications were that he would also win in California.

As soon as his victory became apparent, Mr Kerry received a phone call from the president.

Mr Kerry said he and Mr Bush had a “very nice conversation”.

Vice-President Dick Cheney immediately went to the television stations to attack Mr Kerry.

“He very clearly has over the years adopted a series of positions that indicate a desire to cut the defence budget, cut the intelligence budget, to eliminate many major weapons programmes,” Mr Cheney said of the 19-year Senate veteran.

Mr Bush’s re-election campaign will see the launch of a multi-million dollar TV advertising blitz tomorrow.

The nomination process, which began in January, sees each state return a certain number of delegates to the Democratic Party convention, held in the summer.

Essentially, the candidate with the most delegates becomes the official party nominee to contest the presidency in the November election.

In the Super Tuesday showdown, 10 states with a combined population of 94 million – one-third of the US total – awarded 1,151 delegates, more than half of the 2,162 needed to seize the nomination.

Mr Kerry, a 60-year-old senator, had 701 delegates to Mr Edwards’s 205, even before Super Tuesday’s voting.

Howard Dean, who stopped actively campaigning last month, still managed to win in his home state of Vermont, where he was once Governor.

There are two other candidates still in the race – the Reverend Al Sharpton and congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Neither has won in a single state and their poll figures remain in single digits.