Kerry gets good news from polls, cash from lobbyists
Money and new staff have been flowing into Kerry's campaign since his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire dented Dean's momentum as the presumed frontrunner, and the patrician politician won an endorsement Friday from the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America union.
And polls showed him with a more than 30-point lead over Edwards in the western state of Missouri, which has the most delegates at stake Tuesday with 74.
Kerry held a 21-point lead over Clark in the southwestern state of Arizona with 55 delegates at stake, and a 16-point edge over Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman in the eastern state of Delaware.
In South Carolina, the first primary in the south with 45 delegates up for grabs, Zogby showed Kerry pulling to within a statistically insignificant one percent of Edwards, 24 percent to 25 percent, in the North Carolina senator's birth state.
Clark led Kerry in the western state of Oklahoma, where 40 delegates are for the taking. The western state of New Mexico (26 delegates) and the western state of North Dakota (14 delegates) were to be decided by caucuses.
Meanwhile, Bush was again dogged by questions over the US failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that were used as a major justification for the invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein in April.
Bush declined Friday to lend his voice to a growing chorus calling for an independent probe into prewar claims about Iraq's weaponry but insisted Saddam's overthrow had removed a "danger" to the United States and the world.
"We dealt with the danger, and as a result the world is a better place and a more peaceful place, and the Iraqi people are free, and a free Iraq is in this nation's national interest," he said at a White House meeting with economists. |
