The scheduling suggests that Edwards may not make a full-scale push in Michigan, the culturally diverse, industrial powerhouse where polls give Kerry a commanding lead heading into Saturday's caucuses. But Edwards could poll well in Tennessee and Virginia next Tuesday; if he continues to build momentum in the South, he could enter Super Tuesday on March 2 with hopes of scoring well in Texas and Georgia and, a week later, in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Dean's campaign, once so hip and so hot, is now in disarray -- and, apparently, flaming out. He all but skipped the Feb. 3 contests, and though his supporters had low expectations, Dean's numbers may have been even worse than they expected. Preliminary results showed that he won less than 5 percent in South Carolina and Oklahoma, about 8 percent in Missouri, and roughly 10 percent in Delaware.

Now he is turning to Washington, where he has a large, energetic base of support, in hopes of breaking his fall. After mocking Kerry as "Bush-lite" earlier this week, he has continued to attack the new front-runner as a cog in the Beltway status quo. At a rally Tuesday in Spokane, he told supporters bluntly what is at stake: "If you want change in America, at 10 a.m. on Saturday you can have it because Washington state is going to be the turning point -- if we win -- of this campaign."

For the four other Democrats still in the race, Tuesday's vote was a test of viability -- and all four seemed to fail the test. Clark, the war hero and former NATO commander who was seen by some as the most capable of challenging Bush on national security grounds, may have stayed alive with an apparent victory in the close Oklahoma race. While he attracted a core of committed volunteers and high-profile endorsements, his candidacy never gelled. He had been expected to win Oklahoma, but he lost ground late to Edwards and Kerry.

His only son, 34-year-old screenwriter Wesley Clark Jr., suggested a loss in Oklahoma should compel his father to drop out of the race. But he blasted the news media yesterday for coverage of his father's campaign.

"You go out and see the way politics really works," he complained to reporters. "It is a dirty business filled with a lot of people pretending to be a lot of things that they are not ... There was a lot of sneering and whispering going on by columnists and talking heads ... It is all a horse race. No one is talking about the issues."

Lieberman, who supports the Iraq war and is the unofficial candidate of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, never found traction in a race that has been shaped in early months by Dean's fierce antiwar critique, and by a general assault on Bush that has found its courage in recent weeks. He sought hope where he could find it, touting an endorsement by the Arizona Republic as evidence of his "Joe-mentum." He was hoping for another boost in Delaware, but the "Joe-mentum" turned to "slo-mentum" there. Kerry won the state, and soon after the polls closed there, Lieberman quit the race.

Dennis Kucinich, the leftist congressman from Ohio, did nothing Tuesday night to improve on his weak showing in earlier races.

The Rev. Al Sharpton finished far off the lead in South Carolina yesterday, with 10 percent of the vote, but early reports suggested that even African-American voters there preferred Kerry and Dean. The New York civil rights leader was hit this week by reports in Salon and elsewhere that he has made a de facto alliance with a Republican campaign team, which apparently helped raise the money to keep him in the race.

Now, and perhaps for the next month, it's a two-man race, with Kerry clearly the dominant force and Edwards a long shot: Dean could theoretically still be a factor, but that's looking less and less likely. Even if Kerry is able to hold his momentum, fascinating political questions will be playing out just below the surface of the campaign.

Is Edwards running for vice president, and when will he make that decision? Last night, he insisted that's not the case. "I think this is the continuation of the surge we've seen in the other caucuses and primaries," he said. "We're in as good of financial shape as any campaign in the race." If Kerry creams him in the big March 2 primaries, packed with states like California and New York that are likely to swing to the Massachusetts senator, will Edwards remain in the race, tantalized by the March 9 primaries in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana? If he does well there and thinks he has a shot, he could conceivably remain in the race all the way through June 1, trying to pick up states like North Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama.

Such a move, however, would likely hurt Democratic Party unity. An earlier Edwards departure would make it easier for Kerry to select him as a running mate, a development many are predicting.

Dean insisted again last night that he's in the race for the long haul. "We're going to keep going and going and going and going," he told supporters in Tacoma, "just like the Energizer Bunny." But on MSNBC's "Hardball," Dean qualified that slightly. "Is the long haul February 17 in Wisconsin?" asked host Chris Matthews. "No," Dean replied, "the long haul is March 2nd."

If he stays in, what's his objective? Though he insists he can win the nomination, he's lost in nine states and won in none -- voters aren't drinking the Kool-Aid. He might pin his hopes on March 2, but unlike with Edwards, the primary schedule offers him no hope after that. If he doesn't win on Super Tuesday, he's finished. At what point does he hurt the party's effort to defeat Bush?

Perhaps his goal is to keep Kerry honest, and to maintain the influence of the Deaniacs on the party agenda as long as possible. If that effort keeps his supporters engaged and energized, and if it doesn't become destructive, Dean can take satisfaction that, even in a losing effort, his effort has helped the party. And in the end, that would be good for Kerry, too.

Laura McClure and Mark Follman contributed to this report.

Recent Stories