Kerry on a roll

"It's very easy to lay out the map to get us to the nomination," Edwards told the AP, drawing a line from Michigan on Saturday to Virginia and Tennessee next Tuesday. Utah's Democratic primary is Feb. 24.

To the roar of his supporters, Edwards declared, "The politics of lifting people up beats the politics of tearing people down."

Edwards narrowly lost to Clark in Oklahoma, missing a chance to show his presidential mettle outside the South and emerge as Kerry's chief rival.

Dean saved his money for a last stand in Wisconsin on Feb. 17, a long-shot strategy that some of his own advisers questioned.

"We're going to have a tough night," Dean told supporters as he promised to keep "going and going and going and going — just like the Energizer bunny."

Said Steve Murphy, who ran Rep. Dick Gephardt's campaign: "Howard Dean is done." The list of ex-candidates grows: Florida Sen. Bob Graham dropped out first, then Carol Moseley Braun, Gephardt and Lieberman.

"Today the voters have rendered their verdict and I accept it," Lieberman said.

Kerry, who just six weeks ago was written off as a candidate, reshaped the race with victories in Iowa and New Hampshire while Dean's candidacy cratered. "I'll keep working and fighting until I win the nomination, and then I'll keep working and fighting until I beat George Bush," he told the AP.

In a speech prepared for delivery to supporters, Kerry said, "George Bush, who speaks of strength, has made America weaker — weaker economically, weaker in education and weaker in health care."

Kerry is racking up endorsements as he tries to unite the party behind his front-running candidacy. To that end, the 1.2 million-member American Federation of Teachers, the country's second largest teachers' union, planned to back Kerry on Wednesday, a senior union official said on condition of anonymity.

Even Democrats who didn't vote for Kerry appear fairly comfortable with him. Large majorities of voters — ranging from about 70 percent in Oklahoma to more than 80 percent in Delaware — said they would be somewhat or very satisfied if Kerry wins the nomination, exit polls showed.

Nearly half the voters in South Carolina were black and nearly one in six in Arizona were Hispanic, the first contests with sizable minority populations in the primary campaign. In Missouri and Delaware, about 15 percent of the voters were black.

Looking beyond Tuesday, Kerry planned visits to Washington state and Michigan, where polls show him leading Saturday's caucuses. Edwards and Clark focused on Tennessee and Virginia. All three candidates planned to air ads in the two southern states.