By Mark Z. Barabak
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE -- John F. Kerry scratched out a victory Tuesday in the Wisconsin primary, but John Edwards finished close enough to emerge as a serious challenger to the Democratic front-runner and extend the race to California, New York and other states on March 2.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean came in a distant third, and campaign strategists hoped to convince him to quit the race as early as Thursday.
Although Kerry padded his winning record -- now 15 victories in 17 contests -- the margin with Edwards cracked the door to at least the possibility of a fight for the nomination.
Tuesday night, both Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. Edwards of North Carolina declared victory, one far more enthusiastically than the other.
"I want to thank so many across Wisconsin and America who have given this campaign their help and their hearts," a subdued Kerry told a crowd of supporters outside Madison, the state capital. "Tonight, I say to all of America: Get ready. A new day is on the way."
Unlike past election nights, marked by exuberant, overflow audiences, there was room to spare at the Kerry victory celebration, with the dampened spirit matching the candidate's sober tone.
By contrast, Edwards was ebullient as he addressed supporters at a community hall in Milwaukee.
"Today the voters of Wisconsin sent a clear message," he said. "The message was this: Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear."
Edwards pumped his fists and held up the arm of his wife, Elizabeth, as the crowd cheered and confetti rained. He enjoyed a laugh at the expense of the pollsters and pundits who forecast a Kerry blowout.
Edwards had spent a whole week in Wisconsin and campaigned far more aggressively than Kerry, who arrived Friday after taking two days off. With the contest shifting to a national stage, that kind of up-close-and-personal campaigning becomes a luxury no candidate can afford.
"That's the biggest challenge that Edwards faces," said Don Kettl, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "Is it possible to successfully translate his face-to-face personalized campaigning to the mega-state, wholesale campaigning you need for Super Tuesday?"
On that day, in less than two weeks, the Democratic candidates will be vying for 1,151 delegates in 10 states -- close to one-third of all those at stake in primaries and caucuses. Wisconsin was the first stand-alone primary since New Hampshire's vote three weeks ago, which is why candidates camped here for days and literally crossed paths on the campaign trail.
Edwards, who boasts of being a strong closer, appeared to benefit from a well-reviewed performance in Sunday night's debate and an endorsement in Monday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the largest newspaper in the state. (The same thing happened last month in Iowa, where a convincing debate performance and a Des Moines Register endorsement helped lift Edwards' to a surprise second-place finish.)
Edwards' heavy emphasis on jobs and the economy, which proved by far the most important issues here, seemed to fuel his appeal with Wisconsin voters, according to exit polls.
"In Milwaukee, Green Bay, Sheboygan and a lot of small towns you've probably never heard of ... industries have just been moving out," said Christian Grose, an assistant political science professor at Appleton's Lawrence University.
"Everything Edwards was saying completely fit in with those sorts of concerns."
In TV spots and appearances across the state, Edwards repeatedly condemned the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, blaming the treaty -- as many here do -- for a significant loss of high-skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs.
Kerry supported NAFTA, which Edwards began pointing out with increased frequency after long refusing to compare himself to the Democratic front-runner.
Edwards also began drawing a more personal contrast with Kerry and his privileged background by discussing his modest upbringing as the son of middle-class wage-earners. That also seemed to resonate in a state where many Democrats live in small towns and rural areas.
Edwards signaled his intention to sharpen his rhetoric in a series of satellite television interviews conducted Tuesday before the Wisconsin polls closed.
"I want people to know what the differences are between us," he said. "I mean I come from a different background than he does. I have new, fresh ideas about how we can change Washington." Wisconsin's unusually open voting system also seemed to play a part in Edwards' strong showing.
Anyone 18 years or older was eligible to vote, and exit polls showed that about 3 in 10 of those who cast ballots Tuesday were independents. Republicans made up about 1 in 10 voters, the most in any of the contests so far.
Edwards defeated Kerry by more than 2-1 among Republicans and had a double-digit lead among independents, reflecting results in earlier contests where Edwards ran strongest among more conservative voters.
Tuesday night, he seized on the results as evidence of his electability.
"I think it means I can beat George Bush," Edwards said on CNN. "I believe the electorate is divided into a third Democrats, a third independents and a third Republicans. If we're going to win the general election, we're going to have to get independents."
Some observers saw incipient signs of buyer's remorse or, at the least, an indication that voters are not ready to wrap up the Democratic contest scarcely a month after it started.
Voters in later primary states "don't want to be taken for granted," said Charles Cook, an independent campaign analyst. "They hate to hear that the contest is over before they get a chance to vote."
For Dean, his distant third-place finish dealt another serious blow to a campaign on a steady slide for weeks. Top campaign strategists planned to gather with Dean for an assessment Wednesday in Burlington, Vt.
Times staff writers Nick Anderson, Maria L. La Ganga and Matea Gold and staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt contributed to this report.
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