NYT: Competition Back in (Dem) Race

[DeepModem Mom]

NEWS ANALYSIS
Competition Back in Race
By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: February 18, 2004

MILWAUKEE, Feb. 17 — In this unsettled Democratic primary season, time has been John Edwards's friend, and tough competition has always inspired John Kerry, and on Tuesday the searching, independent-minded voters of Wisconsin gave both men a bit more of each.

Senator Kerry racked up another victory, but Senator Edwards's second-place showing made it easier for him to argue that the 29 days since the Iowa caucuses have not been enough time to pick his party's best-tested nominee. Mr. Kerry now faces at least a couple of more weeks of the kind of contest that has helped sharpen his skills on the stump.

Democratic Party leaders designed this year's front-loaded primary process to produce a consensus candidate quickly, without bloodletting and with the broad backing needed to take on President Bush. Mr. Kerry had hoped Wisconsin would make him the near-nominee with just such support — and with an array of pragmatic policy positions on topics from tax cuts, to trade to gay marriage that he contends can make him competitive in November — and he came ever closer.

Still, Mr. Kerry could not quite close the deal, and this famously iconoclastic state gave Mr. Edwards hard evidence for his own lawyer's case that a mere month of voting should not produce a verdict. He won the support of about half the primary voters who made up their minds within the last three days, according to a survey of those leaving the polls. And with Wisconsin allowing independents and Republicans to vote in its open primary, the senator from North Carolina also won the support of roughly 4 in 10 non-Democrats, compared with about a quarter for Mr. Kerry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/18/politics/campaign/18ASSE.html