WASHINGTON (AP) — John Kerry and John Edwards swapped charges as their South Carolina primary fight shaped up to be key to Kerry's dreams of sweeping seven states Tuesday and seizing command of the Democratic nomination fight. On the eve of a cross-country contest, Howard Dean joined Edwards in calling the front-runner a friend of special interests. But there were fresh signs of weakness in Dean's campaign, and Kerry went for the jugular against Edwards, questioning the North Carolina senator's credentials and electability.
"This is not the time for on-the-job training," Kerry told South Carolina reporters Monday via satellite from Albuquerque, N.M. In a speech, the four-term Massachusetts senator looked confidently beyond the nomination fight to a potential race against President Bush.
"Like father like son. One term only," Kerry said. "Bush is going to be done."
Though they would agree with that point, Kerry's chief rivals said he is not the candidate best suited to stand up to Bush.
"It's going to take one tough hombre," Wesley Clark said while courting Hispanic voters in New Mexico. "And I'm one tough hombre."
So nobody would miss the point, Clark spoke a bit of Spanish and told voters about his 5-week-old grandson — Wesley Pablo Oviedo Clark — whose mother, the wife of Clark's only son, is Colombian.
Clark, Edwards, Dean and Sen. Joe Lieberman faced long odds trying to slow Kerry's momentum. Polls showed him with solid leads in Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, Delaware and North Dakota. Kerry was within reach of victory in the remaining two states, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
In South Carolina, where Edwards needed to eke out a victory to keep his candidacy alive, election officials dropped the requirement for voters to sign an oath binding them to the Democratic Party. Strategists said the decision could increase turnout of black voters, a bloc trending toward Kerry, because oaths carry a stigma of times past when poll taxes and literacy tests were used to keep minorities from voting.
The move could also benefit Edwards, who, according to polls, attracts South Carolina's independent voters, they said.
Edwards, who has promised to run a positive campaign, criticized Kerry's acceptance of contributions from lobbyists and his free-trade policies.
"I don't take contributions from lobbyists, and he obviously does," Edwards told reporters after a speech at the College of Charleston. "If we want real change in Washington, we need someone who hasn't been there for 15-20 years."
Dean chimed in from New Mexico, where he conducted 21 satellite interviews with stations from seven states.
"He's gotten more money from special interests than any other senator in the last 15 years," he said of Kerry. "That is exactly why we're not getting anywhere in Washington."
While on the mark in detailing Kerry's record, Edwards and Dean ignored their own deep ties to special interest money.
Holly Armstrong, press secretary for Kerry in South Carolina, said it is ironic that Edwards, a wealthy trial lawyer, "is launching an attack on special interests when the majority of his money comes from one interest group."
Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie, visiting Edwards' home state, said the senator "gets 40 percent of his campaign contributions from trial lawyers at the same time he is blocking tort reform and medical liability reform legislation."
Clark, a former lobbyist himself, hopes to salvage his candidacy in Oklahoma, where polls show him in a three-way race with Edwards and Kerry.
Dean, who just three weeks ago was considered the race's front-runner, has not advertised in the seven states voting Tuesday. He also decided against advertising in Michigan, the delegate-rich state holding caucuses Saturday. And he likely will to forgo advertising in Washington state, Maine, Tennessee and Virginia.
Dean is raising $200,000 a day, enough to have mounted a sizable ad campaign in one or two states Tuesday, but aides said they stayed off the air out of extraordinary caution. They don't want to run up a campaign debt that might be a personal burden to Dean after the race. After balancing the books, aides predict they'll have a large stash of money for an ad blitz in Wisconsin, site of a Feb. 17 primary.
"Michigan is ungodly expensive. You have to spend millions to make a dent so it doesn't make much sense to do that," said Roy Neel, hired by Dean last week to run his campaign. Joe Trippi resigned as campaign manager last week, and Dean's political director took a leave this weekend.
With money still flowing into the campaign, Neel lifted a payroll freeze and more than a dozen staffers have been let go. Still, Dean's most powerful backers were getting nervous.
Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, issued a weak-kneed reaffirmation of his union's support: "We're here solidly at the moment."
A fresh spate of endorsements added weight to Kerry's argument that Democratic leaders are rallying behind his front-running candidacy. The newfound support pushed Kerry ahead of Dean in the chase for delegates, as several superdelegates backed the front-runner, according to a survey by The Associated Press.
Two polls Monday showed Kerry leading President Bush — 53 percent to 46 percent in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll and 51 percent to 43 percent in a Quinnipiac Institute survey.
Between satellite interviews, Kerry spoke to an aide about polls showing Bush winning Edwards' home state.
"Edwards says he's the only one who can win states in the South. He can't win his own states," Kerry said.
The North Carolina lawmaker shot back: "I think it's important that voters understand when we talk about electability that I am the only candidate that actually has a record of having won in a tough state."
