A reshaped Democratic presidential field took aim today at the next coast-to-coast round of five nominating contests, with Mr Wesley Clark launching his toughest attacks yet on front-runner Mr John Kerry and rival Mr John Edwards.
Mr Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator and Vietnam veteran, took a day off the campaign trail after rolling up five more wins yesterday in the race to find a Democratic challenger to President George W. Bush in November.
But with a win each to keep their hopes alive, Mr Clark and Mr Edwards threw themselves back into the hunt, focusing their efforts on showdowns next Tuesday in Tennessee and Virginia that could decide which one emerges as a clear alternative to Mr Kerry.
Mr Clark, the retired general who scored a narrow win over Mr Edwards in Oklahoma, kicked off a bus tour of western Tennessee and launched a direct attack on Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards, a North Carolina senator. He labeled them both Washington insiders and conventional politicians.
"I'm not part of the Washington problem. I'm part of the solution," the former NATO commander said during a stop in Jackson, Tennessee.
"There are some people in this race that are part of the problem. The people I am talking about are John Kerry and John Edwards," Mr Clark said.
"I don't understand how John Kerry and John Edwards can criticize the state of our economy and claim to be champions of America's working families when they voted for the president's tax cuts for the very rich," he said.
Mr Edwards, who scored his first victory in South Carolina on Tuesday, hit both Tennessee and Virginia on Wednesday and touted his win as evidence that he was the Democrat who could compete with Mr Bush in the South.
Fallen front-runner Mr Howard Dean, meanwhile, pegged his hopes for resurrection on the contest on Saturday in Washington. He also is aiming for a February 17th battle in Wisconsin that could loom as a final stand against Mr Kerry for all of the contenders.