Big Wins for Kerry, Edwards Out

March 2 -- John Kerry cemented the Democratic presidential nomination tonight,driving rival John Edwards from the race with a string of SuperTuesday triumphs that catapulted the Massachusetts senator into aneight-month struggle to oust President Bush.

"Change is coming to America," Kerry said, capping aremarkable run that began with his candidacy on the brink ofextinction in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Dominating all comers, the Massachusetts senator won 27 of 30elections as each victory fed on the next in a swell of momentumthat no rival could overcome. From Edwards' Southern strongholds tothe jobs-poor Midwest states of Ohio and Michigan to the growingSouthwest battleground of Arizona to his own New England base,Kerry racked up victories in a what proved to be a six-week primaryseason that amplified Democratic criticism of the Republicanincumbent.

In state after state, Democrats said their top priority was acandidate who could defeat a wartime president with a $100million-plus campaign treasury. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran,won an overwhelming number of their votes, and now leads arelatively united party against Bush.

"I am a fighter, and for more than 30 years I have been on thebattle lines, on the front lines, for fairness and mainstreamAmerican values," Kerry told cheering supporters in Washington,D.C., promising to close tax loopholes, offer new incentives formanufacturers, protect the environment, raise the minimum wage andcut health care costs.