Clinton, Bush Win Primaries in Three States : Campaign: Both triumph by comfortable margins in Kentucky, Arkansas and Idaho. The ‘uncommitted’ vote shows Perot’s appeal.

Bill Clinton swept primaries in Kentucky, Idaho and at home in Arkansas on Tuesday as he drove toward the Democratic presidential nomination. Ross Perot flashed his appeal as “uncommitted” voters turned out in strength in both Democratic and Republican races.

President Bush, his renomination secure, won primaries in all three states in a GOP race long since drained of suspense.

Clinton seemed on track for clinching his party’s nomination next Tuesday, when California and five other states pick 700 convention delegates.

But the prospect of a three-way general election campaign in a year of voter unrest made the uncommitted showing Tuesday even more striking. That was particularly true in Kentucky, where Perot supporters were urged in advance to use the uncommitted line to register their support for the Texas billionaire, who is a likely independent candidate in the fall.

In the Democratic race in Kentucky, Clinton won 56% of the vote, to 28% for uncommitted in final returns. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. received 8%.

With 93% of Arkansas precincts reporting, Clinton had 68% of the vote, uncommitted polled 18% and Brown had 11%. In Idaho, with 51% of the precincts reporting, Clinton had 51%, uncommitted 26% and Brown 18%.

Asked if Perot was qualified to be President, Clinton seemed to depict his likely rival as a man who is vague on the issues. “That’s a decision for the American people to make,” he said. “I don’t know him well enough to know.”

In Republican presidential balloting, Bush had 74% of the vote in Kentucky to 26% for uncommitted. Conservative rival Patrick J. Buchanan was not on the ballot.

In Arkansas, with 85% of the precincts reporting, Bush was leading 87% to Buchanan’s 13%. And in Idaho, it was Bush with 65%, uncommitted 22% and Buchanan 13%, in returns from 54% of the precincts.

Meanwhile, a backlash from the House bank scandal claimed two more victims in voting Tuesday, the eighth and ninth members of the House to be defeated thus far.

Nine-term Democratic Rep. Carroll Hubbard Jr. of Kentucky, who wrote 152 bad checks, was defeated by businessman Tom Barlow. Hubbard’s wife, Carol, lost a bid for nomination from a different district.

In Arkansas, 24-year veteran Bill Alexander, a Democrat who wrote 487 bad checks, lost to former aide Blanche Lambert. She aired a television commercial showing Alexander saying he had written no bad checks, whereupon a buzzer sounded as though he were a game show contestant giving the wrong answer.

Rep. Beryl Anthony Jr., who wrote 109 bad checks, led in a three-way Democratic race in Arkansas but was short of getting 50% of the vote and was headed for a June 9 runoff against either Secretary of State Bill McCuen or insurance man Pat Pappas.

Idaho Democratic Rep. Richard H. Stallings and Boise Republican Mayor Dirk Kempthorne won their party nominations to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Steve Symms.

There seemed no doubt that Clinton would win the Democratic presidential nomination, and he seemed certain to reach the target of 2,145 delegates with the primaries next week. He began Tuesday night with 1,913 delegates, and it appeared that he would add at least 63 to that total.

But beyond the primaries loomed the likelihood that Clinton and Bush would find themselves in a three-way race with Perot, whom Buchanan dubbed a “wild card” while campaigning in Alabama.

Perot’s Kentucky chairman, Charles Hellebusch, said his man claimed no credit for the large uncommitted vote in the state. “Our look is to November and we don’t have time to really get into that,” Hellebusch said.