Kerry celebrates his Super Tuesday victory (AFP)

WASHINGTON , March 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Democratic front-runner Senator John Kerry secured on Tuesday, March 2, the Democratic presidential nomination, chasing his sole major rival from the race and challenging incumbent President George W. Bush.

The Massachusetts lawmaker forced Senate John Edwards to abandon his bid for the ticket, taking nine of 10 party contests held from coast to coast on the so-called "Super Tuesday", reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The decorated Vietnam veteran won California, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Connecticut, Maryland, his home state Massachusetts, Minnesota and Rhode Island, losing only in Vermont to the state's former governor and once front-runner Howard Dean, who dropped out of the race last month.

For the 60-year-old Kerry, the nomination capped a roller-coaster campaign that saw him go from a struggling underdog to a front-runner.

He ran the table of Tuesday's votes with 1,151 delegates at stake, more than half the 2,162 needed to secure the nomination.

Prior to the "Super Tuesday" polls, Kerry had won 18 of the 20 states contested in the race for the nomination.

He spoke by telephone with Edwards and received a congratulatory call from Bush, who offered his good wishes.

Unified

Nevertheless, Kerry threw down the gauntlet to the Republican incumbent in a victory speech to cheering supporters as other Democratic hopefuls emerged unified and hungry throughout the White House race for battling against a president whose popularity has dropped sharply.

"I believe that in 2004, one united Democratic Party, we can and we will win this election," said the four-term senator.

"Tonight, the message could not be clearer all across our country -- change is coming to America ."

Kerry ticked off a list of campaign promises, from repealing Bush’s tax cuts to health coverage and efforts to create new jobs.

He again accused Bush of championing an "inept, reckless arrogant and ideological foreign policy".

"If George Bush wants to make national security the central issue of the campaign of 2004, I have three words for him that I know he understands -- bring it on!"

Kerry had kind words for rival Edwards, 50, who has won praise for his courteous and unflaggingly positive campaign and has been touted as a possible vice-presidential candidate.

"There is no question that John Edwards brings a compelling voice to our party, great eloquence to the cause of working men and women all across our nation, and great promise for leadership for the years to come," triumphant Kerry said.

But he gave no indication of his choice for running-mate ahead of the Democratic national convention this July in Boston .

Grinding Battle

But the Republicans are preparing for an aggressive campaign.

Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said that It was time now "to turn to a two-man general election contest".

The Bush campaign plans to unroll a two-month media assault on Kerry -- running adverts on cable television and targeting 17 states where the November race could be close.

Last month, Kerry accused Bush of playing the “politics of fear and smear” in response to a Bush’s ad accusing Kerry as having ties to "special interests, a reference to powerful Washington lobbyists."

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made the rounds of talk shows Tuesday and confirmed he would run again on the Bush ticket in November.

Playing the usual tune, he said the election would focus on how to keep the country "secure from terrorism" and rebuilding the national economy.

Also running as an independent will be consumer advocate Ralph Nader whose candidacy four years ago was widely seen by Democrats as siphoning off the votes from then contester Al Gore to Bush.

Exciting 

U.S. dailies said on Wednesday that the early nomination of Kerry as Democratic presidential candidate shows that the primary process works well and opens up an exciting eight-month election period.

As the Democratic Party had hoped for, wrote the Washington Post, the primary vote "will produce an early nominee with a minimum of internecine bloodshed and a candidate free to raise and spend as much as he can before the general election officially starts this summer.

"From the perspective of producing a candidate with the credibility to take on an incumbent president, the system also performed well," said the Post.

Kerry is the candidate "with greater experience in national affairs and the biography to run against a 'war president,' as Mr. Bush styles himself," the daily added.

Although an eight month presidential race "seems like something beyond overkill", said the New York Times editorial, it will "allow the American public to become inured to the commercials, and to look beyond them to the messages the president and Senator Kerry send about governing".

It said Kerry "should take on a responsibility similar to the head of the British opposition, which is a shadow government that comments on what the people in power are doing and describes an alternate course.

"Bush will have to respond to events in Iraq , Haiti , Afghanistan and the rest of the world. He will have to take stands on domestic issues ... In each case, Mr. Kerry will have a chance to explain whether he would have chosen differently."

"If he is very clear and very forceful," the editorial added, "he could give the country an explicit picture of the differences between himself and Mr. Bush, and help Americans envision what a Kerry presidency would be like."

A U.S.A Today/CNN/Gallup survey in February showed Bush's popularity down 11 points in a month to below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency.