A BUSH FOE AND A CLINTON ONE ARE OUSTED IN GEORGIA PRIMARIES

While neither Democrat Denise Majette, nor Republican Representative
John Linder is a household name, they both scored impressive victories
over better-known rivals in the Georgia primary on Tuesday.

Ms. Majette, a Yale-educated former judge, handily defeated a
five-term Democratic incumbent, Cynthia A. McKinney, a vocal liberal
in the Democratic primary in the state's Fourth Congressional
District. Mr. Linder cruised to an easy victory in the Republican
primary in the Seventh Congressional District over Representative Bob
Barr, a strident conservative who four years ago had led the effort to
impeach President Bill Clinton.

"I may only be 5 foot 1, but tonight I am 10 feet tall," Ms. Majette,
46, told cheering supporters at her victory celebration as she stood
on a platform in order to be seen over the lectern.

By winning their respective primaries, Mr. Linder and Ms. Majette are
virtually assured of victories in the general election since their
parties dominate both of their districts.

"We're just here this evening to congratulate John Linder for having
run a very good race," Mr. Barr said in conceding defeat. "We go into
the fall race very much a united party."

Mr. Linder, 59, a former dentist and business executive whose
phlegmatic style was a sharp contrast to Mr. Barr's sizzle, had, at
times, made his steady demeanor an issue in the campaign. During one
debate, for example, Mr. Linder said to his opponent, "I will remind
you that I am the one who has been married for 39 years to the same
woman," a subtle criticism of Mr. Barr, 53, who is in his third marriage.

The race between Mr. Linder and Mr. Barr, two incumbents running in a
district reconfigured by redistricting, and the contest between Ms.
Majette and Ms. McKinney were the two highlights of the Georgia primary.

In other important races, Representative Saxby Chambliss, whose
campaign received strong backing from the White House, defeated two
opponents in the Republican primary for the Senate and will face
freshman Democratic Senator Max Cleland in November. Mr. Cleland ran
unopposed in the Democratic primary.

In the gubernatorial race, former state Senator Sonny Perdue defeated
two opponents for the right to take on Governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat.

With 89 percent of the vote counted in the Seventh District, Mr.
Linder had 67 percent, to 33 percent for Mr. Barr. In the Fourth
District, with 75 percent of the vote counted, Ms. Majette had 60
percent of the vote to Ms. McKinney's 40 percent.

Reports indicated a strong turnout of Republican voters casting
ballots in the Democratic primary, presumably in a bid to defeat Ms.
McKinney, 47. State officials were investigating the source of
telephone calls made to voters in heavily Republican areas telling
them, "It is a violation of state and federal law to attempt to vote
in a Democratic primary without proper documentation."

Republican leaders charged that the phone calls originated with the
McKinney campaign as an attempt to tamp down Republican crossover
voting in the open primary. A spokesman for Ms. McKinney denied the
accusation.

Both of the Congressional races were noteworthy as intraparty spats in
carefully drawn districts dominated by one party, virtually assuring
the winners of being elected to Congress. As a result, neither race
will have an impact on the narrow balance between the two parties in
the House.

Still, both races featured well-known personalities, many from out of
state, and both races produced their share of vitriol.

Ms. McKinney, who has served 10 years in the House, has been
criticized for a number of tart comments, such as declaring that the
Bush administration may have ignored warnings of the Sept. 11 attacks
and that President Bush's allies in multinational corporations have
profited from the war on terrorism. She also said she would have
accepted a $10 million check from a Saudi prince for victims of the
attacks that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York spurned after the
prince suggested that America's policies in the Middle East were
partly to blame for the hijackings.

The McKinney-Majette race also rekindled concerns about a split
between blacks and Jews, a rift that many leaders of both communities
hoped had healed in recent years. But Ms. McKinney, who has been vocal
in support of Arab causes, drew much of her campaign financing from
pro-Arab groups, while Jewish groups contributed to Ms. Majette's campaign.

A number of prominent blacks, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and
Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, who have been accused of
making anti-Semitic remarks, campaigned for Ms. McKinney.

On the Republican side, Mr. Linder and Mr. Barr, who has served four
terms, ran against each other in a district that cuts across Atlanta's
northern suburbs. The revamped district was part of a new
Congressional map created by Georgia's overwhelmingly Democratic
Legislature that shifted much of Mr. Barr's old Seventh District into
a new one that favored a Democratic candidate.

Both incumbents are conservatives and differ little on fiscal and
social issues like cutting taxes, gun control and abortion. With
little to distinguish themselves on issues or ideology, the race
featured more of an emphasis on style.

A former United States attorney, Mr. Barr burst on the national scene
in 1997 when he became the first Republican to call for the
impeachment of Mr. Clinton. Mr. Barr soon became a regular on talk
shows, and the next year was a House manager making the case in the
Senate for Mr. Clinton's removal.

As befits Mr. Barr's celebrity status, he attracted a host of
conservative luminaries, including Charlton Heston, G. Gordon Liddy
and Oliver L. North to campaign for him.

In another primary on Tuesday, in Wyoming, businessman Eli Bebout won
the Republican primary to succeed Gov. Jim Geringer, who could not
seek re-election because of term limits. Mr. Bebout will face Democrat
Dave Freudenthal, a former federal prosecutor, in the general election
in the fall.