WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Democratic front-runner John Kerry

rolled to dominating wins in Virginia and Tennessee Tuesday,

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 notch his first wins in the South and make the case

that he is a national candidate who can rally Democrats in every

region of the country.

“Americans are voting for change — East, West, North and now in

the South,” Kerry said at a victory rally in Fairfax, Va. “We will

fight for every vote, and we will carry our cause all across this

land.”

The sweep gave Kerry 12 wins in the first 14 contests in the

race to find a challenger to President Bush and appeared likely to

knock at least Clark out of the race. It also set up a possibly

climactic showdown next Tuesday in Wisconsin, where a Kerry win

could effectively end the race or at least cripple his remaining

rivals.

Clark, a retired general, and Edwards, a freshman senator,

focused on Virginia and Tennessee all week in an effort to score

strong enough showings to propel them on to Wisconsin.

But Edwards finished a distant second in Virginia, with Clark

running third with less than 10 percent with nearly 90 percent of

the votes counted. Kerry was getting one of every two votes.

In Tennessee, early returns showed Kerry with a double-digit

lead over Edwards, with Clark in third place.

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 last challenger to Kerry still in the race

after Wisconsin, when the bulk of the delegates to July’s

nominating convention still will be up for grabs.

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 met 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.

Dean looks to Wisconsin

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 Monday, he said he would stay in the race past Wisconsin,

win or lose.

“The election next Tuesday is about whether you want to stand up

for a progressive America again,” said Dean, who finished fourth in

both Virginia and Tennessee, at a Milwaukee rally. “We are going to

win Wisconsin.”

Edwards and Clark skipped last 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 at nearly every stop and concentrates 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 percent of the 4,322 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.