Has the DLC gotten to Clark?

[jeter]

I was just wondering. Many of the DLCers are now in favor of Clark's candidacy. And he seems to have done a flip-flop on the war. Maybe the DLC see Lieberman as a loser and think that Clark can beat Dean.

This is bad. This is really bad.

[IndianaGreen]

1. Lieberman and Kerry are the DLC -preferred candidates

Al From supports Lieberman, while Bruce Reed supports John Kerry.

[maggrwaggr]

9. uh, i'd say that was true until two days ago

I bet if you asked them now ........

They wouldn't be able to answer 'cause they're too busy fellating Clark Bars.

[wtmusic]

2. Good point

It's totally unrealistic to think they haven't gotten to him.

Could backfire of course. Americans have had enough lies out of the Republicans to put up with flipflops, especially on the war. I don't understand why the DLC believes Dean is unelectable but I sure hope to hell he proves them wrong.

[pansypoo53219]

5. because he is from

iddy bitty vermont and NOT south of the fucking mason dixon line.
they are a bit like baseball stat freaks. HELLO, Dean could be the oakland As.

[genius]

3. Clark was anti-Iraq-war. You can't change the past.

He disagrees with most of hte DLC's positions.

[maggrwaggr]

10. have you been paying attention?

he says he would have voted for the IWR.

Can't have it both ways, bub.

[phegger]

12. actually, he said he *probably* would have voted for IWR,

a statement that surprises me, but I'm not about to write the guy off as a DLC plant because of it.

Also:

Clark said that if he were in Congress, he would vote against Bush's request for $87 billion for operations and reconstruction in Iraq unless the president details a specific strategy to eventually withdraw U.S. troops. Clark said he wants more troops in Iraq, but was unsure who best can provide them -- the United States, Iraqis or other countries. . He would consider cutting defense spending if elected, he said.


-ph :smoke:

[Clete]

4. I think Clark is part of the DLC in principle if

not in actual membership. I can't see a member of the military, who are mostly conservative, suddenly turn into a flaming liberal.

[sfecap]

6. Well...look at it this way...

Most, if not all, Clark "endorsements" have come from DLCers.

The DLC hates Howard Dean.

The DLC is frightened of Howard Dean and his campaign. They cannot control it. That's bad for them. They've attacked him, and it only served to make him stronger. None of the present candidates look like they can comfortably beat Dean. The DLC wants a sure thing.

Wes Clark was "drafted". Someone convinced him that he would have major old guard DLC backing, and the money would be there for him. He appears to be the annoited one as far as the DLC is concerned.

The Clintons are involved, as are their former staff and campaign coordinators.

The Clintons are DLC.

Connect the dots.

[charlie]

7. Or maybe

the DLC is cutting their losses and scrambling to get in front of the parade again. Their influence appears to be waning, they might be trying to preserve their "relevance." Backing Lieberman is about a wrongheaded fuckup as I can imagine. If they thought they had the power to foist that chucklehead on the electorate, let alone core Democrats, they're out of touch, out of synch, and headed for the history dustbin. In other words, this might be the DLC hitching its wagon to Clark and not the other way around.

[Eloriel]

8. That's my thinking on the subject

And it would make sense. Their guys are cutting the mustard, so here's Clark to stop Dean.

Dean must be stopped at all costs. He is currently THE most dangerous man in America -- he's fomenting a revolution of The People who are going to take their government back. Corporations have no pull, the elite have no pull, the status quo PTB have no pull -- in Dean's campaign, it's all about The People. He's accountable only to them. He must be stopped.

Fortunately, if the DLC is behind is "Probably would've voted for the war" quotes, the DLC has badly miscalculated -- as usual for them in the last few years.

Eloriel

[Cocoa]

11. I don't think the DLC uses mind control

I think people associate themselves voluntarily with that faction, either out of agreeing with their principles or out of a strategy for winning.

I really don't think Clark would have any ideological problems with the DLC, so there's no "getting to him" about it. He seems like a pro-business dem all the way, and has pointed to Clinton's economic policies as a model.

[saoirse]

13. Answer: No

It's called:

Attracting media attention.

This will be completely forgotten a week from now,
let alone 13 months from now.

Clark is our guy. Deal with it.

[phegger]

14. with apologies to madaboutharry

quoted from a previous post:

"At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," General Clark said.
A moment later, he said: "I don't know if I would have or not. I've said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position - on balance, I probably would have voted for it."

And this on Dean's war views: "I think he's right. That in retrospect we should never have gone in there. I didn't want to go in there either. But on the other hand, he wasn't inside the bubbke of those who were exposed to information."

O.K., so what do we learn here? First, Wesley Clark was conflicted and troubled by the war. This is what I heard on CNN. I did not hear the cheerleading Mike Malloy says he heard. Second, and of no less importance, we learn that reporters and the media are indeed the whores that MWO says they are. And third, we learn that Wesley Clark is now learning that the press is not his friend and that he will never be giving the benefit of the doubt. The Clark people need to get this clear by tommorrow morning.

says it for me...


-ph :donut:

[Julien Sorel]

15. He has to earn the benefit of the doubt.

Let the media go at him -- once he learns to deal with them, which I'm confident he will, they'll begin backing down. This is the first, and biggest, lesson I think he has to learn: campaigning is about more than giving speeches in front of people. It's about more than convincing subordinates or peers or superiors of the correctness of your ideas. Clark mastered those skills long ago. Campaigning is about painting an aura, an image, and the way to do that is to handle the media. One reporter can have an audience wider than all the people Clark will talk to in a live environment in an average month of campaigning. If that reporter talks to another reporter, who talks to another reporter, suddenly Clark has a reputation with people who have never even met him. Those are the people he's going to have to deal with. They aren't friends. They aren't enemies. In most cases, they want to see the guy they are covering do well, because if he takes off, they take off with him. But they still have a job to do, a responsibility. Clark can weather this learning stage, although the time frame is short, so his learning curve is going to be steep.

I'm a little surprised that he wasn't better prepared for this stuff though. He should have been getting coaching from someone during this time. I wonder what was going on.