Clark on rise in New Hampshire
More see him as best bet to rival Dean
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 12/6/2003
NASHUA -- Bob Bettilyon sat in the front row of a crowded college meeting room, waiting to hear retired Army general Wesley K. Clark, and looking for a sign, a buzz, a spark.
Bettilyon, 54, has one goal for this primary season: find someone who can beat President Bush in 2004. Most Democrats, he figures, have similar policy views. But compared with former Vermont governor Howard Dean, he said, Clark seemed to be missing something. "He just hasn't come on as strong as I would like to see," he said. But an hour and a half later -- after Clark had mocked Bush, hugged the American flag, and delivered a feverish rant against the military-industrial complex -- Bettilyon, a financial controller from Nashua, was closer to being convinced. "Very impressive," he said. "I may vote for him in the primary."
If Clark ends up going to the White House, these past two weeks might mark the start of the turnaround. His response to the Republican Party's latest ads -- "I'm not attacking the president because he's attacking terrorists; I'm attacking him because he isn't attacking terrorists" -- popped up on television screens throughout the country. His latest stump speeches have drawn a positive response from crowds. And polls in New Hampshire this week registered a small but definite uptick.
"Someone's going to end up being the opposition to Dean," said pollster Dick Bennett, president of the Manchester-based American Research Group. "I'm tending to think that it may be Clark."
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