US PRIMARIES: With Senator John Kerry expecting to wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination in weeks, his campaign is focusing on the choice of running mate, and his rival, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, is being tipped as the most likely choice.
Mr Edwards would bring a southern accent to a Kerry ticket and help counter the image of the Massachusetts senator as a northern liberal.
For Mr Edwards, who had high hopes of conquering the south after his victory in South Carolina on February 3rd, it may now be all he can expect. His chance of beating Mr Kerry in his own "back yard" - as he calls the Dixie states of Tennessee and Virginia where primaries are being held today - have slipped dramatically since Mr Kerry swept to victory in Michigan, Maine and Washington state at the weekend.
In Tennessee the Massachusetts senator is leading Mr Edwards by 45-21 and in Virginia by 47-24 per cent, with retired General Wesley Clark third and Howard Dean fourth. Mr Edwards's game plan is to hang in until he and Mr Kerry are the only two candidates left.
The Kerry campaign is also considering the claims of Richard Gephardt for the No. 2 spot. The Missouri Congressman has encouraged his blue-collar and union supporters to switch their loyalty to Kerry. A Kerry-Gephardt ticket would mean a strategy of targeting industrial states rather than the deep south.
By appealing to Democrats as the best candidate to beat President Bush in November, Mr Kerry has won 10 of 12 contests, but still has only 426 of the 2,162 delegates needed to secure the nomination. This gives Edwards, Clark and Dean a mathematical chance of catching up on Super Tuesday, March 2nd, when 11 states vote, including California and New York.
Mr Dean is making a last stand in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday and has raised $1 million from die-hard supporters on the Internet to get back in the race.
Former Vice-President Al Gore, who has endorsed Mr Dean, plunged back into the presidential campaign on Sunday when he fired up a crowd of several hundred Democrats in Nashville, Tennessee, by accusing Mr Bush of betraying America when he ordered the war against Iraq. "He played on our fears," Mr Gore cried. "He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place." He recalled that President Richard Nixon had used "the politics of fear" to drive his father, Albert Gore Snr out of office and said that "in the last three years we've seen the politics of fear rear its ugly head again".