WoW! Grassroots support for Clark is real! I thought I don't exist!

[robbedvoter]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/23/clark/ 
The general and his ground troops
Howard Dean is not the only Democratic candidate who has inspired an army of followers. Wes Clark's ranks are growing, and they include Bush deserters.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Michelle Goldberg
Oct. 23, 2003  |  Since she found Gen. Wesley Clark, Beatrice Moritz, a Manhattan photographer, has stopped hating George Bush. She's taking down the full-page MoveOn.org ad she'd taped to her wall, with its scowling picture of the president labeled "Misleader." Before becoming a Clark volunteer, she'd spent months seething, becoming obsessed with photographing those who were "speaking back" to Bush with their signs at protest marches, incredulous about the nation's acquiescence to an administration that seemed to her so self-evidently awful. Then Clark turned it all around.
"Now I feel like I have an alternative because Wesley Clark, he's going to win," she says. "It makes me feel that I'm not going to waste my energy thinking about all the bad things Bush has done. I don't hate Bush as a person. I went through a period of that, but I'm more focused now on the very positive experience of supporting a candidate who's a real president, and I know it's not just me. I feel it."
snip
Many of Clark's followers say that while Dean speaks to their rage, Clark, four-star general, intellectual, humanitarian and war hero, speaks to their longing for something higher. "He's obviously the best man at this time in history," says Alexandra Richards, a New Jersey stay-at-home mother with a 2-year-old child and an unemployed husband. Figuring that their economic prospects are unlikely to improve as long as Bush is in office, Richards and her husband are considering selling their house and moving to Clark's home base in Little Rock to volunteer for the campaign full-time. "Dean makes me angry about the present," Richards writes in an e-mail. "Clark, on the other hand, gives me HOPE for the future. Hope feels better than anger."

SILVER STARS VS SILVER SPOON

[xultar]

1. Awwww! How kute...

Not to make light of the article but it is kind of how I feel. Since Clark announced I feel like there is some hope out there. I don't however, want to lose the rage. That is why I support a Clark/Dean ticket with Sharpton as Press Secretary!

[DoveTurnedHawk]

2. I Loved This Article

I sense good things are happening with the campaign. Fundraising is strong, the issues are starting to gel, now all we have to do is get some better media coverage. :-)

DTH

[Vikingking66]

3. I don't get it

I've seen almost every speech Dean's given, and I've always been attracted by his optimism:

"
This campaign is about more than issue differences on health care, tax cuts, national security, jobs, the environment and our economy. It is about something as important as our children. It's about who we are as Americans.

Here are the words of John Winthrop: "We shall be as one. We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always living before our eyes our Commission and Community in our work."

It is that ideal, the ideal of the American community, that we seek to restore.

An America where it is not enough for me to want health care for my family but the obligation, and responsibility of every one of us as American citizens to insure that each one of us has health care for our families.

An America where it is not enough for me to want good public schools and a better life for my children but an obligation, and a responsibility as citizens to insure that every child in America may go to a good public school and have the opportunity of a better life.

An America where it is not enough to protect my rights under the law but where it is a duty and an obligation for each of us as Americans to make sure every American is equal under the law.

An America where it is not enough to proclaim the words freedom, self-government, and democracy, but where it is a duty and a responsibility to participate together in common purpose with the sacrifice required of each of us to give those words meaning."

[Rowdyboy]

4. "Hope feels better than anger..."

That pretty much sums it up for me.

[HFishbine]

5. This Doesn't Give Me Much Hope

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark helped an Arkansas information company win a contract to assist development of an airline passenger screening system, one of the largest surveillance programs ever devised by the government.

Starting just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Clark sought out dozens of government and industry officials on behalf of Acxiom Corp., a data powerhouse that maintains names, addresses and a wide array of personal details about nearly every adult in the United States and their households, according to interviews and documents.

<snip>

The privacy impact of anti-terrorism initiatives is certain to be a major issue in the presidential campaign," said David L. Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in the District.

"The public is extremely skeptical," he said. "He owes the public an explanation as to how, if elected, he would limit the government's expanding collection of personal information about citizens."

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ articles/A7380-2003Sep26.html

[Julien Sorel]

6. Yawn.

Out of curiosity, how many Clark threads are you going to run around posting this on? Clark has stated that he wants the Patriot Act reviewed, and has made his position on civil liberties pretty clear, since the right to dissent is a cornerstone of his campaign.

I think what doesn't give you 'hope' is the threat that Clark presents to that sublime entity, Howard 'I only lie half the time, and then only when it helps my political career' Dean.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DemExpat]

8. Great story. Clark fills me with hope for a better future too.

He's the only one with a chance of winning who does this for me.

Go, Clark!

:kick:
DemEx