Wes Clark

[erpowers]

It seems that Wes Clark has a chance of winning in the Democratic Parimary. He possibly will have good support if he chooses to run in 2008. However, is Wes Clark too much of a moderate or too far to the right?

[dogman]

1. Research it and get back to us.

Then we can discuss something.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. How Can He Research Himself?

[Clark2008]

6. Huh?

I think you're confusing the title of the post with the poster's user name.

[ZombieNixon]

3. Absolutely not.

Clarkies on DU have many good quotes from the good general about being a "liberal."

Just being former militar does not make one a wingnut by any means.

[Clark2008]

4. Not moderate, but comes across that way

which is what we need.

http://www.clark04.com/issues/

Research away.

[democrank]

5. Have you ever listened to Wes Clark?

I was floored when I first heard him talk about poverty, the prison system, outsourcing, civil rights, education, health care, etc. I expected him to be center-right, but was I ever wrong. Clark has given some of the most profound speeches I have ever heard.

[Totally Committed]

12. The Wes Clark I Took the Time and the Opportunity to Get to Know:

"Freedom and dignity spring from within the human heart. They are not imposed. And inside the human heart is where the impetus for political change must be generated."


"You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the years to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His Name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences."


"Today, in the year 2004, we stand at a threshold of a new era. Will we continue down the path of fear and isolation, pursuing America's interests at the expense of others? Or will we reach out to find common ground on which to build a safer world? Will we see an America increasingly divided by a chasm between wealth and opportunity that threatens the very foundations of justice? Or will we dedicate ourselves to helping all Americans reach their full potential? Will we see a democracy that increasingly delegates its responsibilities to a secretive, self-selected elite? Or will we revitalize the spirit of participation on which our nation was founded? In the America I believe in, the answers to these questions are clear."


"But where is the balance here? How much must we give up to be safe? And how much will such sacrifices compromise the very freedoms we seek to protect, or the prosperity we have come to enjoy? These are the issues with which you must grapple...they cannot be decided by "experts" and "authorities." Coming up with the balance will be your responsibility - it cannot be delegated to so-called experts - or given over in trust to elected leaders. Rather, yours is the daily responsibility of citizenship, carried on through open debate and exercised at the ballot box on a hundred different issues and candidacies. And this will require dissent, dissent that cannot be silenced through charges of comforting the enemy without surrendering the very freedoms we say we are fighting for."


"Patriotism doesn't consist of following orders--not when you're not in the chain of command. For the American people, for citizens in a democracy, patriotism's highest calling isn't simply following what the administration says. It's not blind obedience. It's not unquestioned adherence. The highest form of patriotism is asking questions. Because democracies run on dialogue. Democracies run on discussion. No administration has the right to tell Americans that to dissent is disloyal, and to disagree is unpatriotic . . . . We need a new spirit, a new kind of, a new American patriotism in this country . . . . this new spirit of patriotism should be dedicated to the protection of our rights and liberties . . . . In times of war or peace, democracy requires dialogue, disagreement, and the courage to speak out. And those who do it should not be condemned but be praised."


And, then... this:

A 100-YEAR VISION
by Wesley K. Clark

Looking ahead 100 years, the United States will be defined by our environment, both our physical environment and our legal, Constitutional environment. America needs to remain the most desirable country in the world, attracting talent and investment with the best physical and institutional environment in the world. But achieving our goals in these areas means we need to begin now. Environmentally, it means that we must do more to protect our natural resources, enabling us to extend their economic value indefinitely through wise natural resource extraction policies that protect the beauty and diversity of our American ecosystems - our seacoasts, mountains, wetlands, rain forests, alpine meadows, original timberlands and open prairies. We must balance carefully the short- term needs for commercial exploitation with longer-term respect for the natural gifts our country has received. We may also have to assist market-driven adjustments in urban and rural populations, as we did in the 19th Century with the Homestead Act.

Institutionally, our Constitution remains the wellspring of American freedom and prosperity. We must retain a pluralistic democracy, with institutional checks and balances that reflect the will of the majority while safeguarding the rights of the minority. We will seek to maximize the opportunities for private gain, consistent with concern for the public good. And the Clark administration will institute a culture of transparency and accountability, in which we set the world standard for good government. As new areas of concern arise - in the areas of intellectual property, bioethics, and other civil areas - we will assure continued access to the courts, as well as to the other branches of government, and a vibrant competitive media that informs our people and enables their effective participation in civic life. And even more importantly, we will assure in meeting the near term challenges of the day - whether they be terrorism or something else - that, we don't compromise the freedoms and rights which are the very essence of the America we are protecting.

If we are to remain competitive we will have to do more to develop our "human potential." To put it in a more familiar way, we should help every American to "be all he or she can be." For some this means only providing a framework of opportunities - for others it means more direct assistance in areas such as education, health care, and retirement security. And these are thirty year challenges - educating young people from preschool until they are at their most productive, helping adults transition from job to job and profession to profession during their adult lives; promoting physical vigor and good health through public health measures, improved diagnostics, preventive health, and continuing health care to extend longevity and productivity to our natural limits; and strengthening retirement security, simply because it is right; first for our society to assure that all its members who have contributed throughout their lifetimes are assured a minimal standard of living, and secondly to free the American worker and family to concentrate on the challenges of today. Such long-term challenges must be addressed right away, with a new urgency.

We have a solid foundation for meeting these challenges in many of the principles and programs already present today. They need not be enumerated here, except to argue for giving them the necessary priorities and resources. We can never ensure that every one has the same education, or health care, or retirement security, nor would we want to do so. But all Americans are better off when we ensure that each American will have fundamental educational skills and access to further educational development throughout their lives; that each American will have access to the diagnostic, preventive and acute health care and medicines needed for productive life, as well as some basic level of financial security in his or her retirement.

To do this we will have to get the resources and responsibilities right. In the first place, this means allocating responsibilities properly between public and private entities. Neither government nor "the market" is a universal tool - each must be used appropriately, whether the issues are in security, education, health or retirement. Then we must reexamine private versus public revenues and expenditures. We need to return to the aims of the 1990's when we sought to balance our federal budget and reduce the long- term public debt. Finally, it means properly allocating public responsibilities to regulate, outsource, or operate. This means retaining government regulation where necessary to meet public needs, and balancing the federal government's strengths of standardization and progressive financing with greater insights into the particular needs and challenges that State and local authorities bring.

As we work on education, health care, and retirement security we must also improve the business climate in the United States. This is not simply a matter of reducing interest rates and stimulating demand. Every year, this economy must create more than a million new jobs, just to maintain the same levels of employment, and to reduce unemployment to the levels achieved in the Clinton Administration, we must do much more immediately. This is in part a matter of smoothing the business cycle, with traditional monetary and fiscal tools, but as we improve communications and empower more international trade and finance, firms will naturally shift production and services to areas where the costs are lower. In the near term we should aim to create in America the best business environment in the world - using a variety of positive incentives to keep American jobs and businesses here, attract business from abroad, and to encourage the creation of new jobs, principally through the efforts of small business. These are not new concerns, but they must be addressed and resourced with a new urgency in facing the increasing challenges of technology and free trade. And labor must assist, promoting the attitudes, skills, education and labor mobility to enable long overdue hikes in the minimum wage in this country.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

96. Wesley Clark is my FIRST choice for 2008! I will work...

to destroy anyone who gets in the way of him getting the nomination!

[KT2000]

165. that's how I feel too

have you seen how progressive college students react to him? They are energized and idealistic in their admiration of him, at least in the speech I saw.

Wes Clark is our candidate for 2008.

[Dinger]

37. Yes, I Wish There Were Some Kind Of Collection Of His Speeches

... a book, or DVD, or something. I witnessed something in Green Bay when I heard Wes give a foreign policy speech that I still find hard to believe, except I witnessed it first hand. I sat next to a Korean War vet who supported bu$h in the primaries, but his curiosity got the best of him. He told me after hearing Wes speak, that there was no way he could ever vote for bu$h, no way.

[CarolNYC]

53. I like this piece

...about a speech the General gave in South Carolina during the primaries....

In something called the school’s media center, several hundred people form a ring, slightly more students than adults. Wesley Clark bounces into the room, beaming, waving, greeted by a burst of applause, people leap to their feet, heads stretch to catch a glimpse of the celebrity, the national celebrity that has came to their small Southern town.

“The education you get,” Clark says, “depends on where you live.” He explains that in our country the quality of the education one receives is determined by the tax base of the town one lives in, meaning poorer children get a worse education than children in more wealthy neighborhoods. “This country cannot afford to leave students behind,” Clark emphasizes, “education is the key to the American Dream!”

The speech is delivered with strength and with passion; the general gives the impression that what he says is what he believes. Fifteen minutes into the speech, the adults remain attentive, but the high school students, being high school students, have glazed-over eyes. Fifteen minutes can be a long time.

“We are in this together,” a theme Clark would return to several times, as he attacks Bush’s tax cut. “I’m going to put our children at the top of the list. They are going to be my first priority.”

What education is really about is money, funding education programs, funding teachers, funding the repair of school buildings. Clark is not discussing tax cuts for individuals, not the American Dream as a new SUV. For him all Americans must sacrifice for the good of this country, a good that cannot happen without our sacrifice.

“There is plenty of money; it’s just not in the right places. The wealthy need to be patriotic and to give some money back!”

For Wesley Clark, then, redistribution of income is not a dirty idea, not unpatriotic as it is for George Bush, and even for some of the skittish other Democratic candidates. For Clark it is the essence of patriotism.

Although Clark’s speech was on education in rural areas, it was also about his overall views. The candidate kept returning to the venerable liberal theme that we are a community of people and as a community all of us must contribute to the solution of our problems. The military is not an individualist institution, regardless of the "Army of One" ads, nor one that emphasizes materialism. Clark’s three decades in this institution does not have him today singing the glories of individualism and the dream of financial enrichment, he is more comfortable with sacrifice for the common good.

While the national media carries the Republican message that Howard Dean is a liberal, Wesley Clark, under the media’s radar screen, speaks like a Kennedy-Johnson -- dare I say the word? -- liberal. Dean, being slammed hard, would never talk straightforward about taxing the rich to pay for programs for the poor. Wesley Clark is doing exactly that.

It took a Cold War politician, Richard Nixon, to go to communist China. Will it take a retired military general to rehabilitate liberalism?

http://tinyurl.com/6vsd5

[mwb970]

71. I liked him the first time I saw him.

Before he was a candidate, he was a frequent commentator on one of the cable news channels. Something about his voice, his manner, and the look in his eyes really got to me.

If he had been nominated, would he have been subject to Swift Boat Liars type trashing? Don't tell me they could paint him as a war criminal!

[Mark E. Smith]

7. Best Shot At Winning We Have

Clark/Richardson 2008

[sundancekid]

9. I second that emotion!

[sportndandy]

13. Any dem will win a fair election

Richardson? Um, okay...

The best chance dems have of winning is getting all the votes counted fairly.

[Dinger]

38. . . . as long as it's a 5%+ Margin

I read somewhere that somebody on bu$h's side said it's important to keep the elections close, and as long as it's by 5% or more, they were safe. I bet there are limits that even DIEbold & Co. cannot cover up.

[Padraig18]

16. I wouldn't agree with 'best', but at minimum 'rock solid'

Since none of us knows what the state of the nation and world will be in mid/late 2007, I think it's unwise to opine today that X or Y will be the 'best' candidate available to us then. That said, Gen. Clark would be a GOOD candidate, I'm quite sure.

[kentuck]

8. Too intelligent.

...

[Mark E. Smith]

74. After 8 Years Of Bush...

...intellect will be back in style with a vengeance.

[driver8]

163. After 8 years of Shrub...

...a brick would appear to be intelligent.

[robbedvoter]

10. A general declaring himself unabashedly liberal. You do the math.

[sportndandy]

11. His politics isn't the issue.

Despite what the MSM said, Kerry was probably the most conservative of the Dems in 2004. Maybe Clark was too liberal, but I don't think so.

I voted for him in the Del. primary, but I got turned off when he tried to go mainstream. He looks commanding in a suit and a tie, he looks comfortable that way, he looks presidential. I want my president to look that way. When he put on the cardigan to try and win votes it totally turned me off. He looked like a hack in that sweater. He was attractive when he was the outsider, but when the image consultants got to him they turned him into just another Dem.

If he puts on his suit, or better yet his uniform, he can count on my vote. I want a candidate who is not afraid to be himself, and Clark got away from himself.

[MidwestTransplant]

14. Actually I think Dean was the most conservative (based on his record)

but people here don't seem to want to accept that.

[Clark2008]

15. Believing the MSM, are ya?

He didn't put on the sweater to win votes. He put on the sweater - his brother-in-law's, btw - because he was cold. He had on shirtsleeves and no jacket.
Just so you know.

[sportndandy]

18. Didn't he wear it on Jon Stewart?

Trying to look hip to the younger crowd. If he is going to change his image to court votes, what will he do as president?

[Totally Committed]

20. He wore a suit on The Daily Show!

He wore the Sweater on a satellite appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher to publicize the fact that the sweater was being auctioned off on Ebay for Charity! He gave the money to a homesless Vets shelter, for God's sake!

If you are going to malign the man at least know what the F you are talking about!

TC

[Clark2008]

22. He first wore the sweater at a rally in New Hampshire

It was Maureen Dowd, who sways with the wind, who maligned him for wearing the sweater.
While I agree with her column of today, I still have not forgotten her veering toward issues of wool when Clark was speaking of important goals, like ousting Bush.

[FourStarDemocrat]

36. What,? someone has to wear the same thing day in and day out?

No politician or anyone does that. Variety is the spice of life. Sweaters or turtlenecks worn with nice slacks are appropriate for most occasions, including an appearance on the Jon stewart show.

[sybil]

41. ofercripessake...

"...change image to court votes" shows exactly how much you really know about this man.

Otherwise tho, your instincts about the 'right stuff' are pretty good. Top of his game on policy, both foreign and domestic!


"Hey! Don't blame me, I voted for Wes Clark!"

[Totally Committed]

19. And, then there is the contingent of Dems...

who would fight his candidacy, and then not vote for him at all because of that same uniform you want him to put on to get your vote.

The poor man cannot do anything right!

The biggest part of me believes with all my heart that Wes Clark not only COULD BE President of the United States, but SHOULD BE! I honestly believe he would be one of the greatest Presidents this country would ever have had... one for the history books.

But, there is also a small part of me that goes absolutely ballistic when I read the stuff I read here on DU about him. (I read stuff elsewhere, but the "D" in DU stands for DEMOCRATIC... and this man declared himself a Democrat at a time when all he needed to do to secure his legacy was to declare himself a Republican. They would have had a Mardi Gras in his honor if he declared for them! But, no, he declared for his principles and beliefs instead, and has gotten nothing but kicked in the teeth for it here time and time again... okay, I'm rambling....) That small part of me would be just as happy for him if he said F - - - You to the Party and walked away. I know that's not the way the man is wired, so he won't do that. His biggest gift in life is to be of service to this country and his fellow citizens.

Wes Clark is a GIFT! -- Our only chance for a turn in The White House -- and the uniform he wore turns some on and some off. Why is Wes the only one asked to walk such a fine line? Why is he the only one whose motives are scrutinized so closely? Why aren't the Democrats able to just look at him and see what I see? --- A chance to win with a great American patriot at the head of the ticket... someone who is not beholden to any special interest groups... someone whose whole life has been about service to his country?

I honestly don't get it.

TC

[cidliz2004]

28. Clark wasn't the mainstream establishment Democrat

The "insiders" in Washington weren't going to gamble with an outsider unless they had to. He was torpedoed along with Dean. I will never forgive the Democratic Party for doing what they did to both of them. The Democratic Party didn't let US decide who was going to be on the ticket, THEY decided by torpedoing 2 of the most likely candidates that would have been a threat to Kerry. Edwards, I feel, always had the #2 spot pretty well sewn up.

The Dems and Repubs are so "corporate", that ANY outsider will remain an outsider until they somehow become owned by one of the parties.

I love Wesley Clark, I was so inspired by this man that I did things that I would never do for any of the other candidates. He truly was a gift. I hope that somehow in 08', we may get another chance, but I am not holding out hope. I just don't see how we can get past the corruptness of either party.

The only other bright light out there is Dean, I will wait and see what he can do.

[Totally Committed]

100. "He was torpedoed along with Dean....

I will never forgive the Democratic Party for doing what they did to both of them."

I agree... on both counts.

TC

[Shanty Oilish]

170. But Dean has a future in politics, not to mention a past.

Clark hasn't much of either. Voters don't look for high intelligence, it's wonkish. They don't want too much polish, they want a regular guy. After 8 years of * wars, they won't want a military man and that's primarily what Clark is. They don't want a man with no political experience, none, applying for the top job.
Dean has been a governor, and a Democrat, for a long time. He has political credentials, track record, solid achievements. He'll be a contender again.
I backed Kerry from the start, and I still say nobody but Kerry could have come as close as Kerry did, to winning. Picking Edwards was a bad move, though I also think Edwards has a future in politics, and running with Kerry was a bad move for Edwards' career too.
In short, Kerry's through, Clark's through, Dean is not. Hillary Clinton will win the nomination and --- crystal ball time! the '08 primary will be so acrimonious, a 3rd party will emerge, torpedo Hillary and give the presidency to some thoroughly beatable nobody.
I plan to be on a shitload of anti-depressant meds by 2008. :hurts:

[KittyWampus]

25. LOL! Clark Put On A Sweater in NH while campaigning in the WINTER.

And it was a tacky argyle one he borrowed from his brother cause he didn't have time to go buy one.

And just to showcase how assinine the media was for even MENTIONING him wearing a sweater, in NH, in the winter, he auctioned it off on Ebay and donated the money to Veterans ASsoc.

I am astounded you would mention that.

[Totally Committed]

29. A Sweater in the Winter

....has to mean the man cannot be trusted!

Who knows what he'll do when he's President if he keeps warm while he's running.

Only Wes Clark could draw that response from anyone. As I said, the man just cannot do anything right in the eyes of some people.

TC

[Dinger]

39. Weird, Huh?

I loved Wes's response to the media's weak-ass attempt to make him look bad. Auctioning it off on E-Bay & donating it to the Veteran's Assoc., perfect.

[FourStarDemocrat]

35. He is his own person.

I never felt he "got away from himself" during the campaign. He brought all of his experiences, recollections and values that he held during his decades-long career into his speeches, press interviews and Townhall meetings. Most of the time he did wear a suit and a tie, but regardless of that I think considerations of what he was wearing and whether it was because of image consultants rather petty. It was his intelligence, positions on the issues, freshness and integrity which attracted me to support him, and to continue doing so.

[ICantBelieve]

42. Actually... I think his native clothing is a turtleneck

At least in Little Rock...

Whenever he gets on a news show at the last minute, he shows up in a turtleneck.

[Donna Zen]

44. I agree that a candidate must be themselves.

And when it is 10 below zero in New Hampshire, and your brother-in-law has extra sweater, I would advise any person in their right mind to put it on even if Mo Dowd gets smarmy about it.

I've seen Clark in a suit and tie; I've seen Clark in a sweater, cords, and shit-kicking boots. On each occasion, he told the truth and sounded more like a liberal than anyone else I've heard.

[robbedvoter]

50. Oh, no! Did he wear earth tones and I missed it? The horror!

Silly me, getting all giddy about his opposing war, planning of abolishing taxes for lower income families and bringing PNAC to task and the responsibility for 911, and all along the man was wearing the wrong stuff! Thanks for opening my eyes. White shoes after Labor Day I bet too! Never again! :eyes:

[no name no slogan]

64. When we starting picking candidates on how "good" they look...

....we've all but ceded the whole election.

Dan Quayle looked like a movie star, but didn't do much as a Senator. Paul Wellstone looked like a garden gnome, yet his stature in the Senate was much bigger than his 5'6" height.

Quite frankly, most people don't care what a candidate looks like. The only reason they focus on any of that trivial crap is because the candidate has NOTHING NEW to offer the electorate, other than the same warmed-over "me-too" tripe that we've been offering for the last twenty years.

In the last three presidential elections, did any candidate offer a true change in direction? Despite the fact that more and more Americans feel that this country is going down the wrong path, did ANY major-party presidential candidate offer a truly different way?

Did any nomine (R or D) stand up for single-payer healthcare? For serious restrictions on corporate abuse? Did any one of them say that war is not an acceptable tool of foreign policy? Did any of them promise to break up agribusiness monopolies, and restore family farmers to their proper place in the economy? Did any of them promise that EVERYBODY would receive equal protection under the law, regardless of race, sex, ability, income, sexual identity? Did any one of them even ONCE say that mass media and large transnational corporations have too much control over our daily lives?

No wonder that, even with a gangster as president, we still can't get more than 60% of the population to vote.

Once you get a Democratic candidate who's not afraid to stand up for these issues, THEN you'll have NO TROUBLE getting a theft-proof margin of victory.

[karynnj]

67. Kerry was not most conservative

His record is more liberal than:
Gephard
Edwards
Lieberman
Graham
Dean

I agree that Sharpton, Mosley-Braun and Kucinich were more liberal though none of them could have gotten the nomination.

Kerry was not the most liberal senator as the Republicans suggested, but he has been a liberal for his entire career. Clark has no voting record but it is unlikely given his comments at the time issues were voted on that he would have a more liberal record than Kerry.

Although his vote is not public, I doubt Kerry voted for Reagan as Clark is on record as doing. Also, there was the warm praise (on tape) of GWB in 2001-2002.

[JDPriestly]

17. Good judgment and good character

Clark's got both. A president sets the agenda, but doesn't get to decide exactly what policies will be adopted. Within the constitutional parameters, he/she has to compromise and work with Congress and the experts in the administrative agencies to decide policy.

I'm not so concerned about what a presidential candidate says about specific issues. Presidents change their minds about policy once they are in office. There are no exceptions to that.

I think Clark has the right stuff to lead the country, and I think he would make a good president, but so would some other possible candidates. It's too soon to say who will be the best candidate for 2008. We don't know what will happen in the next couple of years.
In 2004, for example, 9/11 decided many issues we could not have foreseen in 1999. I will say that Clark is one of the people I would like to see run. He doesn't hold any public office, so he will have to work very hard to keep in the public eye in a positive way.

[autorank]

21. Amen soul brother!

[Clark2008]

23. He will be battling Newt Gingrich on the issue of America's role

in the UN.
They both are on a panel researching that very issue.
I can't wait for the sparks. :evilgrin:

[Capn Sunshine]

153. I really wish this got more publicity

But MSM still has Clark in blackout mode.

[Tom Rinaldo]

155. Mostly, yes.

On occasion one of the cable shows calls on Clark to do limited commentary, always about matters of foreign affairs in the news, usually Iraq, Iran, or N.A.T.O. But it is seldom more than a few sound bites.

The whole question of the United State's orientation toward international institutions like the U.N., and international agreements like the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty offers some stark differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties, or it should so long as people like Wes Clark help mold our agenda as opposed to people more like Joe Lieberman.

[carnie_sf]

31. Damn Straight

and he's not ashamed of calling himself a liberal to boot. If he runs he's got my vote.

[kevsand]

24. The military thing

There's something that's been troubling me for a while, but I didn't realize until just now what it was exactly.

We pretty universally respect and admire the military careers of our leaders. We hold up Kennedy and Kerry as legitimate war heroes. We knew that they had proved themselves under fire.

We demean the chicken hawks who ran and hid as far from national service as they possibly could. We despise their hypocrisy.

And then, we get the opportunity to work for a true giant of a man, the first clear and compelling leader I've seen in decades, and we shoot him down BECAUSE HE'S A GENERAL??

Sorry for the caps. I'm just amazed at how people's brains work sometimes. Seems like Clark's only crime is that he was too good at what he did.

[Padraig18]

26. Yep.

I've ever quite gotten that, either.

:shrug:

[Totally Committed]

30. "Clark's only crime is that he was too good at what he did..."

How true!

Makes me wonder how some people walk around all day long with their own heads so far up their own sweet petoots...

"And then, we get the opportunity to work for a true giant of a man, the first clear and compelling leader I've seen in decades, and we shoot him down BECAUSE HE'S A GENERAL??"

It's almost looking at a Party made up of a group of people with a collective Death Wish! All that's missing right now from the Democratic Party is matching Reeboks and plastic bags over their heads.

TC

[carnie_sf]

32. Those were Nikes nt

[Clark2008]

33. LOL! I haven't thought about Heaven's Gate since, well, since it

happened.
:)

[Pithy Cherub]

27. Clark is liberal.

The ones that didn't catch that are the media and those who pay strict attention to the media whores. ;)

[machiado]

34. He is a genuine advocate of public service

and he walks the walk. After serving 34 years in the army, he "retired" but has continued to give his all in the name of public service. He finally joined the primary race because he was appalled by Bush's foreign policy directions and felt that the Democratic party needed to provide a voice in this area. At the time, Kerry, who probably had the best national security credentials of the nine candidates then running, was doing very poorly in the primaries. When Kerry ultimately won the nomination, he welcomed Clark as a close advisor and to those of us who followed Clark closely, it was obvious that Kerry adopted many of Clark's ideas on how foreign policy should be approached.

In addition to putting himself out there for the primary last year, he is very active in City Year. http://www.cityyear.org/ says about the program "An Action Tank for national service, City Year seeks to demonstrate, improve and promote the concept of national service as a means for building a stronger democracy. An 'action tank' is both a program and a 'think tank' - constantly combining theory and practice to advance new policy ideas, make programmatic breakthroughs, and bring about major changes in society."

Clark is director of the City Year Program in Little Rock. Here is a newspaper article from yesterday about the Little Rock program.
http://www.ardemgaz.com/ShowStoryTemplate.asp?Path=ArDemocrat/2005/02/26&ID=Ar01504&Section=Arkansas

(PS, for TC and others from CCN, I'm "JoanM" on CCN)

[karynnj]

68. Kerry's foreign policy ideas

are very consistent with his own views expressed over the last 20 years. They are in fact a mature version of his believes as far back as college. (Kerry may be the only candidate who due to his history actually has views on record going back to when he was in his 20s.) I don't see where they were adopted from Wes Clark, who was one of his most able surrogates.

[Tom Rinaldo]

89. Kerry's presentation moved closer to Clark's

I agree that Kerry's position, after the IWR vote, was always similar to Clark's, but Clark was consistently more aggressive in defining the Iraq invasion as a blundered blunder, whereas Kerry was initially less blunt. There was the famous speech Kerry gave before the first debate where he tore into Bush over Iraq. Before making it, it was reported in either Time or Newsweek (I can't remember which), that Kerry discussed with Clark his concern that a more aggressive condemnation of the Iraq operation might undermine morale of our troops serving in Iraq. Clark was reported to have responded that our troops understand exactly what's going wrong there and would welcome truth telling.

[karynnj]

141. Good point

Makes sense and shows that he was a good adviser on this - Kerry seemed very very sensitive to the morale of the troops. (It does further show just how unfair and inaccurate the swiftboat liars were.)

[Tom Rinaldo]

145. Yes, Kerry always cared about the Viet Vets

His work on the M.I.A. issue is another good example of how, unlike Bush, Kerry stands up for the men and women in uniform rather than just praising the abstract "military". Kerry and Clark were both very strong in support of the men and women who serve or have served in our Armed Forces.

[ICantBelieve]

40. LOL!!!

Wes Clark is more liberal than Kerry, Edwards, or Dean. Check out his policies.

http://www.clark04.com/issues/

Or, check out his picture on the Advocate:

http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/907/907_clark.asp

[davsand]

46. That was a proud moment for me to see him on the Advocate.

I spent so long working for GLBT rights--when it wasn't popular and AIDS was first on the edge of our awareness--and it was HUGE for me to see The General on the cover of the Advocate (looking hot as hell, I might add!)

Something I am just delighted by, is the fact that politicians are taking the Gay and Lesbian vote seriously enough to be on the cover of the Advocate. That is huge to me, given where we were at 20 years ago.

I am saddened, however, at the number of youngsters out there who don't realize how important political action is for them. I think they will come around (and it has begun already) when they see how much damage can be done legislatively by conservative hate.

I'm quite proud of Wes Clark's position on gay issues and I do hope you all read that interview he did with the Advocate. While everyone has an opinion on the issue--very few express it as cleanly as he does. He's that way on virtually every other issue I can think of, too.


Laura

[ZootSuitGringo]

43. Clark is a Liberal southern Rhode Scholar 4 star General

Who would make a kickass Democratic candidate against any of who the Republicans will serve up. Their "strong on defense" trump card is forced to come off the table, and can be replaced by the Democratic domestic agenda.

Why Democrats want to keep cutting their own throats by not seeing the advantages that would give us is, frankly, puzzling. :shrug:

Maybe it's because the clear advantages to a Clark nomination is just too obvious. Democrats are not attracted to the obvious, unlike the Republicans. Plus Republicans like to win much more than Democrats, so they'll do whatever makes sense. Democrats like to listen to the pundit pap, and have the media whore analysts tell them what to do. The Republicans, I am sure, are very thankful for that.

[Donna Zen]

45. Some ideas that Clark has put forward:

Hold your Government Accountable
 
People before the powerful

Free but Fair trade with emphasis on the rights of workers, human rights, and the
    environment.

A progressive and fair tax system

Protecting the Constitution and the Environment for ourselves and our heirs

An informed electorate educated by fair and honest public dialogue

Transparent government

Protection of voting rights--paper verification for electronic voting.
A commitment to insure all Americans equal rights under the law
Courts peopled by those sworn to uphold the law as opposed to advancing      
       ideologies.

A government that provides opportunities for its citizens to serve.

International law trumps diplomacy; diplomacy trumps force. Force only, only, only, as a    
       last resort.

A multilateral foreign policy which includes both hard power and soft power.

People over partisanship

Recognition that: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism  

Programs with a view to the future, not just the next election cycle.

Living our family values by promoting our citizens potential with support for public  &
       college education, health care  and jobs.

Government promotion and encouragement of inquiry to develop alternative solutions
       for energy independence and high tech job creation

Recognition that diversity is our greatest strength

Fulfilling our commitments to America's veterans and all  men and women who serve
      our country.

^^^^^^^^^

Recently, Clark has included a reference in each speech to the looming trade problems we will have with an Asian market larger--much larger than the American market. Clark refers to this market as "the Walmart market" and believes that the country must be ready to do long term planning to compete with this emerging market. I doubt many Democrats are talking about that in public. Clark is a New Deal Democrat.

[BoristheBewildered]

52. Wow! No wonder some openly declared here they'll work to stop him!

[no name no slogan]

65. Sounds like every candidate in 2004

Each and every one of them put forth some variation of that theme.

Slogans and platitudes are fine, but what makes his plan different from the others'?

Nothing against the General, but his platform was not much different from that of Kerry, or Dean, or Edwards for that matter. His selling point is that he's an ex-General-- but ex-career military men don't make good presidents.

Clark's a fine man and was a good candidate, but he doesn't offer anything that's much different from the others, IMHO.

[dogman]

47. Is this another HIT & RUN post?

Notice the OP has disappeared, or is he still researching as I suggested in the first post?

[Crunchy Frog]

51. Well, at any rate, we should thank him for doing his part

to keep Clark's name out front. This thread just gives more people a chance to see positive and accurate information about Clark. Sounds like a net positive to me.

[dogman]

61. Yes, it's been pretty positive.

And that's a good thing.

[Jai4WKC08]

48. Clark said this recently about Dean as DNC Chair

But it might not be that far from what he'd say about a presidential candidate, himself or someone else. Except maybe to say "lead" instead of "organize."

MATTHEWS: Do you need a leader who is further to the right?

CLARK: You know, I think it is not a question of where you stand on an axis from left or right. I think it is a question of, what is the substance of your ideas? Are you someone who can organize? Can you communicate? Can you work in detail? And can you help this party communicate to prospective voters?

It has always seemed to me that Clark doesn't put much stock in traditional definitions of left and right, altho he's sure not afraid to call himself a liberal, mostly within the context of classic liberalism, or the defense of the ideal of liberal democracy.

That said, his positions on the issues are, with few exceptions, those usually associated with the left. As were his actions during his military career, especially standing up for minorities and gays under his command, fighting for increased funding for education, and advocating for humanitarian intervention, alliances, international institutions, etc.

[jen4clark]

49. Definitions

I've seen posters here on DU say they would NEVER vote for General Clark or actively fight against him because he is a life-long Republican and being a life-long military man would be too pro-war.

Besides the fact that this has been discussed many times here and facts have been shown to prove this is not true, it keeps being brought up time and time again. As I thought about it last night, it hit me that there's something more going on with those that keep insisting that he's a war-happy Republican. THEY themselves are the very definition of "regressives" or "conservatives" and either they are merely here as Repub plants or they are so locked in to their beliefs they don't see what they've become. So I did a simple google search on definitions and what I found hits the nail on the head.

The bolded words on the Conservative list fits the attitude of those posters perfectly, while many of the words on the Progressive list describe General Clark.

Progressive: liberal

Synonyms: accelerating, advanced, advancing, broad, broad-minded, continuing, continuous, developing, dynamic, enlightened, enterprising, escalating, forward-looking, go-ahead, gradual, graduated, growing, increasing, intensifying, left, lenient, modern, ongoing, onward, open-minded, radical, reformist, revolutionary, tolerant, up-and-coming, up-to-date

conservative: resistant to change, opposed to liberal reforms

Synonyms: cautious, constant, controlled, conventional, die-hard, fearful, firm, fogyish, fuddy-duddy, guarded, hard hat, hidebound, holding to, illiberal, inflexible, middle-of-the-road, not extreme, obstinate, old guard, old-line, orthodox, quiet, red-neck, right, right-wing, rober, stable, steady, timid, traditional, traditionalistic, unchangeable, unchanging, uncreative, undaring, unimaginative, unprogressive, white-bread

[Crunchy Frog]

54. I agree with that analysis.

I've always had the feeling that the extreme left and the extreme right had more in common with each other than differences. In fact, many of the most prominent RW neocons started out as radical leftists.

I would add out of those, cautious, controlled, conventional, die-hard, fearful, hidebound, old guard, old-line, orthodox, timid, traditional, traditionalistic, uncreative, undaring, unimaginative.

At any rate, I at least don't think that the the hard left has much influence in actual Democratic politics, although they often get used by the right to caricature liberals as a whole.

[Totally Committed]

57. I saw a post like this this morning and my head almost exploded....

"I've seen posters here on DU say they would NEVER vote for General Clark or actively fight against him because he is a life-long Republican and being a life-long military man would be too pro-war."

If they would just read what he has written, hear what he has said, learn about what he has done and wants to do, and watch every time he says that what we need is more diplomacy and a lot less war... Even better -- they should try and meet him!

But, no. It's easier to just sit back and wallow in your own prejudices and kiss off election after election like no one else is left to suffer along with you....

Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh!

TC

[Geek_Girl]

55. I think Wes Clark is Pretty much our only hope

for winning the '08 election. We can't win with less than 60+% of the majority of the vote. Who ever we run must win with an overwhelming majority to counter the dirty tricks at the polls.

[Lena inRI]

56. Clark's more liberal than most of us when. . .

you really appreciate his early life.. .I mean how many of us would beat the odds he faced the first 18 years of his life?

"Wes Clark was born in Chicago in December 1944, the only child of Veneta and Benjamin Kanne. His father -- a prosecutor, democratic politician and World War I veteran -- died when Wes was a young child. He and his mother then moved to Little Rock, where they lived in a rented house with his grandparents while his mother got a job as a secretary in a bank. Using his father's deceased veterans benefits, they bought a small house where Wes grew up and became a star swimmer and top student at Little Rock's Hall High School. In 1954, his mother married Victor Clark, who became Wes' stepfather."
http://clark04.com/about/

Progressive: someone who has been forced to live from paycheck to paycheck and knows the value of a dollar.

Wes Clark became a progressive the hard way, not by intellectual exercise alone.
:thumbsup:

[xkenx]

58. The "Duck" Principle

Ducks don't wear signs labeling them ducks. If it has a ducksbill, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, then you know it's a duck.
Wes Clark is one of the Democratic Party's foremost progressives by virtue of his actions over the years, not by any labels that some want to throw at him simply because he had a career in the military.
If they cared to do just a little homework, they might appreciate just how lucky we are to have this national treasure. Just a few items:

--Clark was always butting heads with the stereotypical "macho" military Neanderthals because he saw the horrors of war firsthand in Vietnam and always espoused "diplomacy first."
--Clark was one of the leaders of the all-volunteer Army created after the Vietnam debacle. To keep personnel in you had to do a good job of providing for their family needs, health, education, equal opportunity.
--Clark actually won environmental awards at bases under his command.
--When Clark was working at the Pentagon in the mid-90s, he was virtually the only voice crying out to intervene in Rwanda.
--It was Clark's voice, along with Madeline Albright, who persuaded the Clinton Admin., over the objections of the Pentagon, to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Tell the Kosovar Albanians that Wes Clark isn't a liberal, progressive, humanitarian.
--It was Wes Clark's voice prior to the Iraq invasion who urged that we exhaust all possible diplomatic means before any military action, including in testimony to Congress.
--It was Wes Clark who filed an Amicus Curiae brief in the University
of Michigan affirmative action case.

Since when is it some kind of a black mark for someone to give to his country by serving in the military if he does so in a principled manner? Wes Clark felt that he could make the most impact by providing a progressive voice to that institution.

As for voting for Nixon and Reagan, he did so 20-30 years ago, simply because he felt they were strong on national security. Clark discovered that the modern Republican Party is so different they wouldn't have Nixon, and maybe not even Reagan. Clark evolved to where he started voting for Democrats, and then officially registering as a Democrat after registering as Independent for many years. Reagan WAS a democrat prior to running for Gov. of California. Are any Democrats wanting to say that Reagan, in his later years was a Democrat, simply because he started out that way?

So I'd have to say Wes Clark is my Democrat, liberal, progressive "DUCK" because he has proved it.

Ken

[Dread Pirate KR Read]

60. versus Hawks that quack, quack, quack...

Cheers me'mate! :beer: ...your post be easiest to swallow,..aiye.

versus them neocon mascots disguised as chickenhawks that quack in military garb. They be birds uv'a different feather, ... best stuffed in the pillow fer me'arse.

[Orangepeel]

59. Wesley Clark is a moderate like Howard Dean is a liberal

that is, not.

people (i.e., the media) get these ideas based purely on window dressing. that's the same reason something like 90% of bush supporters think his positions are more like kerry's than his own (based on some poll I saw here a week or so ago).

[Phoebe_in_Sydney]

62. Not only is he liberal

... but I think Wes Clark has the ability to make many people who steer away from the term liberal realise that being liberal isn't something that's exclusively the preserve of north-easterners from certain backgrounds or arty types from Hollywood.

By showing that a high-ranking military man from the south (who's the most decorated officer since Eisenhower) can be pro gay, pro choice, pro affirmative action and educated to masters level in areas of economics and philosophy, Clark broadens the parameters of "liberal".

Not only does he force the right to re-assess who can be a liberal, but, hopefully he can force some on the more radical left to drop some of their tragic stereotyping as well.

[Totally Committed]

63. I so agree!

Nice to "see" you, Phoebe!

TC

[ArkDem]

66. He may have a good chance in the Parimary but the

Democratic Primary is a different story.

[ArnoldLayne]

69. After reading his policies like a "card check law' which states an

employer must recognize the union if the majority of workers indicate their intent to organize. Now I wonder why he wasn't the Democratic nominee for President instead of John Kerry. :dem:

[Texas_Kat]

70. It's got us all scratching our heads too eom

[Clarkie1]

72. He also had the most liberal, progressive and "imaginative" tax plan.

General Wesley Clark has proposed that a family of four with income of $50,000 or less owe no federal income taxes (they currently owe $1,500). To make up for this, families with over a million dollars in annual income would pay 5% more than currently on the amount over a million. Only .1% of American families have annual income over a million. (Those rich families received an average tax-cut of $128,000 from the Bush tax-cuts) Paul Krugman, NY Times columnist and MIT Economics professor described Clark's tax plan on CNBC's "Special Report with Maria Bartiromo," January 26, 2004:

Clark's is actually the most imaginative. What we've been seeing over the past--really, past 20-plus years is a steady loss of the progressivity of the tax system, a steady loss of the system where we--where we--you know, people with high incomes pay a higher share of their income in taxes. Clark's is a serious tax reform effort and attempt to restore some of that progressivity. Major points for imagination.

http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2004_02_08_tax_proposals_edwards_kucincich_clark_kerry.asp

[CarolNYC]

73. Who cares...

about things like the card check law and imaginative tax plans and policy papers and stances on issues?! He admitted to having voted for Reagan, for God's sake!!!! Isn't that all you need to know about the man? :P

[xkenx]

75. Is That All YOU Know About

Wes Clark? Reagan won big, so lots of Democrats had to vote for him.
Should we drum everyone out of the Democratic Party who voted for Reagan? Read my post #58 for more info. If that's all you can comment about Wes Clark, you are woefully uninformed. Why do so many Democrats have a death wish about Presidential Elections? Like nobody can run unless he/she came out of the womb with a tatoo reading "loyal Democrat." Give me a break!

[CarolNYC]

77. Ay currumba...

...that was supposed to be sarcasm, guys. I'm as big a Clarkie as the rest of you....I'm just frustrated with all the posts like that. I thought I would be recognized as a Clarkie...See the General with my Godson in my avatar?..I know it's a little squishy but I don't know how to unsquish it...See my signature?

Sorry...

Been attacked by those who hate to see Clark mentioned, by Kucinich supporters for being a supposed fake admirer of Dennis' and now by my fellow Clarkies. Oi! Gonna go crawl back in my shell. :(

[Crunchy Frog]

81. Hey Carol,

I made an avatar of your picture that won't squish, if you want to use it. Right here.

[CarolNYC]

117. Thanks Crunchy!

That looks much better. :) :)

[Totally Committed]

99. I thought so!

I couldn't figure out where the hell you were going with that post. I felt that if I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic, then I'd better reply to it so that the average DU reader wouldn't misunderstand.

Sorry....

TC

[CarolNYC]

118. No worries...

I should have made myself clearer. My bad.

Rough day yesterday. I'm starting to realize that it's actually easier to get through to some Bushies (and that's NOT an easy thing) than it is to get through to some folks in the Democratic Party. No question that the right wing nuts don't have a monopoly on intolerance and close-mindedness and the ability to ignore facts that don't fit their agenda. :(

[Crunchy Frog]

125. Yep, you're sure right about that.

DU is an eye opening and somewhat sobering experience. I hope you'll stick around though, because there's definitely alot of good stuff and great people here too.

And as far as Wes Clark goes, it's necessary to do more than just preach to the converted. Unfortunately, that does entail alot of contact with some of the most closed minded and intolerant people you will ever run into but it's still worth it for the potential payoff.

[CarolNYC]

134. thanks

...for the encouragement.

And I do agree that every time someone brings up some lie or myth about Clark, it creates a golden opportunity to get some real info out there to those who may not otherwise find it themselves. Clarkies are amazing with the amount of facts and substantiating links they can come up with every time one of these smears surfaces....perhaps because so many of us really researched the guy when deciding to back him for President.

[Totally Committed]

76. Jean Shaheen -- Kerry's Chair -- Voted for Reagan...

She was forced to admit that after she attacked Clark for doing it.

There were a LOT of what were called "Reagan Democrats". Most were from what are now "Red" states.

Have you read his postions? Have you heard him speak? Do you ever want to win an effing election again in your lifetime????

TC

[Crunchy Frog]

82. Hell, his wife Teresa

probably voted for Reagan. She was a Republican until very recently, and her former husband was a Republican congressman.

[karynnj]

140. But John Kerry is highly unlikely to have voted for Reagan

Who his then future wife might have voted for is different from who he voted for and what his political belief system is. That being said
people are allowed to change parties - even Wes Clark. I did think there was a problem in 2004, as he was on tape effusively praising GWB sometime in pre-September 2001 and this could have been used to make later criticisms seem hypocritical . By 2008, that will be further in the past and less relevant.


P.S. Teresa seems independent enough to have VOTED any way she thought best. So unless she is on record as voting for Reagan, I would not assume she did. Does Kerry get credit for turning that whole family Democrat? a few votes, but in a swing state.

[Crunchy Frog]

144. The so called "effusive praise" that is often cited

is refers to one paid speech in which Clark was actually criticizing, in diplomatic terms, the early foreign policy direction of the Bush administration. It's always easy to take a few lines from a speech, divorce them from their context, and make them look far more horrific that they actually were. It is a disingenous tactic in my opinion.

Many Democrats said nice things about Bush, and more importantly, they actually voted for his cabinet selections, during the so called "honeymood period" of his administration. I would suggest that you look that term up and use that information to give things a bit more context. I would also suggest that, in order to avoid the appearance of a double standard, you would look up some statements about Bush and his cabinet made my other Democrats during that period.

Clark has made it very clear that he did not vote for, or support Bush Jr. for election, but that he hoped, for the sake of the country and the world, that he would be a better president than what he has proved himself to be. I simply do not consider that to be an unreasonable position.

By the way, Reagan voted for FDR. According to the standards that people are applying to Wes Clark, that would make Reagan a Democrat, and would mean that Clark was in fact voting for a Democrat when he voted for Reagan. Twisted, I know, but twisted logic is what I usually see in discussions of Wes Clark.

For the record, Wes Clark never changed parties. He went from unaffiliated to being a registered Democrat. Very different from Teresa's situation.

What's your opinion of the information that has been revealed about the extent to which Kerry was apparently trying to get John McCain to agree to be his running mate? That's probably a more significant question that Teresa's former affiliation and voting record, although both should be of great concern for anyone who tries to act as some sort of purity police.

[Tom Rinaldo]

146. I like Teresa

Her past affiliation never troubled me and I never thought less of Kerry as a Democrat because of it, but I understand the point that you are making here Crunch. What bothered me more was Kerry's New Hampshire State Chairperson, a former NH Governor, tearing into Clark before the New Hampshire Primary over the audacity of Clark having voted for Reagan, and only later being forced to admit that she herself voted for Reagan. I don't fault her for voting for Reagan herself. I don't fault New Hampshire Democrats for later having voted for her for Governor, nor do I fault Kerry for naming her Chairperson of his NH campaign. I do fault her cynical hypocrisy, and Kerry for not disavowing her attacks on Clark as "a Republican".

[Crunchy Frog]

148. I thought Teresa was absolutely fantastic

and would have loved to see her in the WH as first lady. I never had any issues at all with her past political affiliation. The only reason I bring it up is to point to the hypocrisy of the Purity Police who rake Clark over the coals for his past votes, while giving a pass to the wife of the 2004 Democratic nominee. I also agree with you about the cynical hypocrisy of people like Shaheen. Hypocrisy is what I hate most about the Repubs, and I hate to see it proliferating in the ranks of our own party. At least the Repubs make it work for them, while we seem to only use it to tear down our own.

I do have serious issues with the McCain business that go way beyond the hypocrisy of it.

[CarolNYC]

167. I agree with everything you say here.

Teresa rocks! :)

The Shaheen thing bothered me too...as did Edwards' adviser and buddy Hugh Shelton's smear on the character of General Clark, as well as Senator Edwards' response when confronted about the smear...which was to defend Shelton as a respected military leader. Nice.

Wes is a much better person than I, to let such stuff roll off his back and climb on board to work as hard as possible to try to help get those two elected.

[Clarkie1]

78. Reagan was a democrat before becoming governor of California.

:hi:

[Peggy Day]

79. wasn't he a republican?

I mean Wes Clark

[Clark2008]

80. Nope. Never.

He voted for Reagan billions of years ago, but was always a registered Independent until he retired from the military.
He registered as a Democrat in 2002.
In the South, we have open primaries, so you needn't be a registered anything to vote in the primaries - and certainly not in the general election.
I'm registered to vote. I am NOT a registered Democrat, btw.
(Tennessee, here).

[Totally Committed]

83. I have been a Democrat all my life...

and I have never seen the constant misrepresentation, repetition of RNC talking points, and sheer inanity about a candidate more than about Wes Clark. Never.

All of it has amounted to a litmus test no other Democratic Candidate has had to pass. So, I ask... why Wes?

As I said in a post above, Jean Shaheen smeared him with that "Republican" b.s. for Kerry, and then ended up admitting she voted for Reagan, too, when pressed. I didn't see anyone so outraged that they demanded Kerry remove her from his campaign.

John Mc Cain was seriously considered by Kerry, not only for VP, but for the Cabinet Position of Sec. of Defense. He is an anti-Choice Republican and yet, STILL enjoys a lot of Democratic voters support. And he IS a GENUINE Republican. Not much of a protest was mounted against that news.

The Edwards Campaign hired a Republican General, Hugh Shelton, as a "consultant". While "consulting", he managed to smear Wes pretty well with what he later had to admit was just a political pack of lies. I didn't see the outcry here about that.

So, I have to question why Wes is given these hoops to jump through? What is so odious about a Four-Star General who was also a Rhodes Scholar (one of his advanced degrees is in Economics... he has actually helped write a national budget), wounded in Vietnam, married to the same woman for almost 35 years, has an active spirituality and is not ashamed of being religious (can quote Scripture verbatim), actively negotiated in the Dayton Accords, has been written about glowingly in books by Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Samantha Power (among others), joined in and filed his own an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan's case in favor of affirmative action, is the author of two book, Op-eds and countless articles, and on, and on, and on....... What does it take to get some respect for this man?

When Colin Powell joined the Republican Party (if you remember, the Democrats actively lobbied him to join their Party at the time...) they practically threw a Mardi Gras in his honor. There was much joy in Wingnutville. The first thing they did was set out to find a position of respect in their Party. Ronald Reagan was himself a Liberal Democrat before he joined the Republican Party. Not only was he revered and honored for that decision, but he became the Father of the Neo-Con movement within that Party. Reagan's quote, when he was asked why he left the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party was, "I didn't leave the Party, it left me."

The Democratic Party has some of the most open-minded people in it. Why can't those very people accept Wes Clark as the GIFT he so obviously is? I have to tell you, it breaks my heart, baffles, and angers me -- all at the same time.

TC

[Crunchy Frog]

97. TC, this is a fantastic post.

I hope you will save it and reuse it whenever necessary, which unfortunately will be extremely often from the looks of things.

I was around here when there was alot of discussion of McCain as a potential running mate. I remember how many good and pure DUers were absolutely slobbering over the prospect. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever witnessed.

[CarolNYC]

137. McCain

I never understood the McCain thing either. I remember talking to a couple of women at a book sale during the primaries. One of them brought up John McCain as a Republican they could stomach. Another, who was from Arizona, said, knwoing him as her Senator, as a liberal Democrat, she wouldn't want to get anywhere near McCain.

I guess if Wes really wanted to be accepted by some Democrats, he should have joined the Republican Party, adopted a lot of very conservative positions and campaigned vigorously for Bush. Go figure.

[sellitman]

84. Clark is the least likely to get the nomination

His showing the last time out was pitiful. He has never held an elective office and is far too conservative to attract this Dem. He just recently affirmed the very fact that he is a Democrat at all.

Furthermore just because there are a huge quantity of Clarkies at DU doesn't mean there are the same amounts in the "Wild". Just as Freepers can take over a site....Clarkies have taken over DU. I may get banned for this post but thats my feeling.

[Totally Committed]

85. "Clarkies have taken over DU.."

And, you don't care if you get banned for saying it. Okay. But, consider this: If Clark is the "least likely", then why is his support growing? I submit that it is delusional to think that because a candidate's supporters grow in number, it means they are "pitiful".

Maybe Clarkies wouldn't feel the need to answer every lie and counter every slur if there were not so many of them on this Board.

I'm not even sure why I'm bothering, to tell you the truth, but.... Just for the record: Only recently did Gen. Clark leave the service. While you are serving, you cannot declare for a Party. He, like the majority of voters in Arkansas (check it out... the majority never declare their Party there), just voted "Party Undeclared". Colin Powell didn't declare as a Republican until he left the service, as well. That is because a soldier/officer serves the Commander-inChief, no matter which Party the CIC is elected from. It wouldn't do to have an officer actively campaigning against the CIC he/she serves.

TC

[sellitman]

93. Only on DU

I have not witnessed the growing outpouring of support anywheres else but DU. When I called his showing pitiful I meant the numbers he got nationally compared to Kerry or Edwards. When push came to shove he was ill equipped for the political nuances that were needed to move forward. He has never held elected office and it showed. In short he was like a deer caught in a headlight.Mind you I would take Clark over bush the lesser any day but not over Kerry, Edwards, or Dean.

Just my .02

[Crunchy Frog]

95. His showing was only "pitiful"

because he was realistic enough to not hang in for ages after it became clear that he couldn't win, while the other not so pitiful candidates stayed in and continued to string their supporters along while losing race after race to Kerry. I find that kind of pitiful myself.

[Sparkly]

98. I think there's a double-standard at work here.

Clark didn't compete in Iowa because he entered the race late; Kerry's enormous momentum coming out of Iowa streamrolled over everybody else. Having said that, at the time of the Iowa caucuses, Clark was ahead of both Kerry and Edwards in New Hampshire (and several of the southern early February states, as well), second to Dean; he ended up beating Edwards there. He'd also raised more money than anyone but Dean, and at a faster rate.

Consider this:
- Dean won a state, and it's said he was a good candidate.
- Edwards won a state, and it's said he was a good candidate.
- Clark won a state, but for some reason, his not being a politician "showed" and "he was like a deer caught in the headlights" -- we hear these same phrases over and over again. Even Gephardt, Kucinich, Graham, et al, who won no states, are usually considered good candidates.

Go figure.

[Tom Rinaldo]

103. 2004 Primary Facts regarding Clark's Campaign

Clark dropped out after the 2/10/04 primaries in Tennessee and Virginia. He did not compete in Iowa. That leaves a total of 13 Primaries and caucuses in which Clark was a candidate. During that time Clark won the third highest cumulative total of votes, after Kerry and Edwards. Clark received 50% more votes than Howard Dean, who was the 4th highest vote getter during those 13 contests (Clark 376,687 vs Dean 254,031).

During those 13 contests Edwards had One first place finish, Four second place finishes, and Two third place finish. Clark had One first place finish, Three second place finishes, and Three third place finishes. Dean had Four second place finishes, and Four third place finishes.

Kerry had Eleven first place finishes, One second place finish, and One third place finish. It seems to me that Kerry ran away from the whole field during the time that Clark was still a candidate, and so Kerry should be in a category all by himself. Edwards and Clark made up the second tier of candidates, with very similar results, though Edwards had a slight edge. Dean followed fairly closely in a third third tier all by himself, and after that the numbers fell off sharply for all other candidates who were competing during that period.

Clark's showing, before he withdrew, was certainly not pitiful when compared to Edwards. You could say that Edwards Clark and Dean had pitiful numbers compared to Kerry if you choose to make that point. All three men swamped the rest of the field during that time, which included two leading Senators, Lieberman and Graham; and the former House Minority Leader, Gephardt.

For your information the break down of States in which Edwards, Clark and Dean finished in one of the top three slots, in races in which they all were candidates, is interesting. Edwards was in the top three in Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Michigan. Clark finished in the top three in New Hampshire, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia. Dean was in the top three in New Hampshire, Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Washington, Michigan, and Maine.

Edwards finished first or second in South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia. Clark finished first or second in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Dean finished second in New Hampshire, Main, Michigan, and Washington. Out of those States, the States which Kerry lost but where Bush was held to 55% or less of the final vote include Arizona, New Mexico, Missouri and Virginia, but only New Mexico (Bush 50% Kerry 49%) was considered "close" (if you trust the totals).

[Totally Committed]

104. Thanks for the facts, Tom!

Super post.

TC

[AP]

106. After WI, Clark was behind Kerry, Edwards and Dean in vote totals.

IA - K: 5k, E: 4.4k, D: 2.3k, C: 0

NH - K 84.4k, E: 26.5K, D: 57.8K, C:27.3k

AZ - K: 101.8k, E: 16.6k, D: 33.6k, C: 63.3k
DE: K:16.8k, E: 3.7k, D: 3.5k, C: 3.2k
MO: K:211.7k, E:103.1k. D:36.3k, C:18.3k
OK: K:81.1k, E: 89.3k, D: 12.7k, C:90.5k
SC: K: 87.6k, E:132.7k, D:14k, C:21.2k
NM: K:43.6k, E:11.4k, D:16.7k, C:20.9k
ND: K:5.4k, E:1k, D:1.2k, C: 2.5k

MI:K: K:84.8k, E:21.9k, D:27k, C:11k
WA: K:11.4k, E:1.6k, D:7k, C:.8k

ME: K:1.6k, E:.3k, D:.9k, C:.1k

TN: K:151.5k, E:97.9k, D:16.1k, C:85.3k
VA: K: 204.1k, E:105.5k, D:27.6k, C:36.6k

WI: K: 327.4k, E: 284.4k, D:150.5k, C:12.7k

At this point, the vote totals were:

Kerry: 1,418,200
Edwards: 900,300
Dean: 407,000
Clark: 394,400

Dean and Clark combined didn't match Edwards's total by the time WI was over.

As for Clark possibly making a difference in NM, his second place was still with less than half the votes Kerry got. Kerry was clearly the strongest candidate in NM.

And it looks like you would have turned Michigan (and maybe WI) into a toss-up if you put Clark on the top of the ticket. Furthermore, there's nothing to indicate that he would have done much in MO. Furthermore, if Clark was having a regional problem (ie, he didn't have much appeal in the upper midwest and the rust-belt) then you would have really been jeopardizing a lot of swing states with Clark on the ballot.

[Tom Rinaldo]

107. The WI Primary was held after Clark withdrew, and so was

Nevada, which was held before Wisconsin. Wisconsin was held on February 17th. Clark endorsed Kerry on the 12th. So I don't understand your point here. Dean by the way was still an active candidate in Nevada, and had been claiming he would make his comeback in Wisconsin where Dean concentrated his campaign.

If you go back over the earlier states you will find that Edwards, with the exception of his birth state of South Carolina, built up most of his vote total running a distant second place behind Kerry in relatively populous states, specifically Missouri and Virginia. These were the early "wholesale States" where personal outreach is relatively ineffective. At that stage of the campaign (after Iowa) Edwards was getting far more free media coverage than Wes Clark received, which was critical in reaching voters in the larger States.

Most news coverage after Iowa and prior to Wisconsin discussed Kerry and Edwards, talked about the approaching end of Dean's campaign, and never mentioned Clark at all. After Clark won Oklahoma he began getting a little more coverage for a week, but it was still far less than Kerry or Edwards received. Believe me, I was paying close attention.

Furthermore, with the resurgence of Kerry in Iowa, Clark lost part of his potential core constituency to Kerry, that being veterans and those concerned about national security and foreign affairs. I would argue that had Kerry somehow vanished from the race, most of his votes would have gone to Clark over Edwards and Dean. And given that Kerry built up a huge lead in overall votes over everyone else in the field, that likelihood to me is significant. Edwards became the anti Kerry, not Clark. Kerry drew much more support from potential Clark voters than from potential Edwards voters.

I am not taking anything away from Edwards. I granted that he had a slight edge over Clark during the time that they both were running, but it was only slight, and the difference between both of those men's showing pales compared to the gap between them both and Kerry. To me that demonstrates the power of group think and the media in determining elections. Kerry won 11 contests during that time, Edwards and Clark one each. Yet I doubt many would argue that Kerry was an eleven times better candidate than either Edwards or Clark.

[AP]

108. I didn't include NV in the total, and maybe part of the reason Clark...

...dropped out before WI is because he saw that he wasn't polling well there. Dean held on until after WI probably because he clearly was polling well there.

Since Clark dropped out just before WI, I suspect a reasonable percentage of his supporters voted for him anyway -- maybe 10 or 20%. Even if it was just 5%, it suggests a lot of weakness for Clark in WI. Notice that he didn't do so well in MI either, which Clark did contest. These Midwest swing states are crucial states for Democrats to win.

With a vote total of 900k for Edwards after WI (vs Kerry's 1.4k, when it was probably clear that Kerry was going to win as early as NH) Edwards did very respectably. And like I said he got 100k more votes than Dean and Clark together, and Clark was behind Dean (albeit narrowly).

I don't think we're talking about "slight" edges here. I think we're talking about something a lot more significant: Edwards had appeal in the south, and he clearly translated that into appeal in the Midwest (he was strong in OH, MI, MN, WI, and MO) -- and he did it by talking about things that mattered to people in those states (work, poverty and opportunity). I think it's kind of obvious why Clark never really got traction in those states. Their fear of terrorism is lower and their concern about the economy is stronger.

My feeling about Kerry was that he was the average of Edwards and Clark, but not so much of Edwards (who is more of a populist progressive) but of the cliche northeast liberal (more like Dean). He was supposed to cover national security and he was supposed to be the guy who was anti-war, pro-feminism, pro-environment, pro-corporate responsibility, anti-corruption liberal. Even though the liberal he was trying to be wasn't exactly Edwards, I still think that a lot of progressives who cared more about economic issues and about class would have jumped on board with Edwards if Kerry hadn't been in the race. I think a lot of unions that supported Kerry would have been way way down with Edwards before getting on board with Clark. So, no Kerry, and I think these numbers still suggest Edwards would have been strong. With a 500K head start over Clark, Clark would have to have taken Kerry's voters 950 to 450, and I think if you look at the places where Kerry had a lot of appeal and votes, they also liked Edwards a lot, and Clark wouldn't have been able to break it that way.

As for the media coverage argument: I don't buy it. Edwards was often in single digits in every state more than 5 days prior to their primaries, regardless of how long after Iowa the primary was held, When all that national free media you talk about was the only source of information for voters, Edwards was in the single digits. (And you know why? It was because they gave Edwards happy talk, good VP coverage, but didn't tell you anything about his policies -- because he talked about the economy and class). When he started running his own ad campaigns and doing personal appearances and getting local coverage (which every other candidate was getting) he climbed exponentially. Edwards was getting support as people were getting more un-MSM-mediated news about him. Any good candidate should have been able to do the same. Bad candidates weren't doing that.

As for your last paragraph: you don't win the primaries by winning states. You win the primaries by winning delegates, and delegates roughly correspond to votes. So, Kerry won a lot of states. But he got 1.4 mil votes to Edwards's 900k, to Clark's 400k during a time when those votes roughly corresponded to the quality of the campaigns the candidates were running, and I dot think that Edwards was 64% the candidate that Kerry was and more that twice as good as Clark.

[Tom Rinaldo]

109. AP you can't count Wisconsin. That is just cheating. Here's why:

Clark was in Wisconsin CAMPAIGNING FOR Kerry. Many DUer's remember the rally where Clark endorsed Kerry and asked for "Permission to climb aboard, Sir". That was almost a week BEFORE Wisconsin voted. Unlike Dean and Kucinich and Sharpton etc. Clark immediately ENDORSED Kerry when he dropped out, and asked all of his supporters to vote for him. Including Wisconsin's vote totals in your comparisons is wildly distorting. Clark was fully out and Wisconsin is a populous State. Dean came close to doubling his total vote count up to that point while only coming in a distant third in Wisconsin. By Wisconsin Edwards was the only other game in town and everyone knew it. Clark was campaigning for Kerry and Dean was fading.

And a lot of Clark supporters, myself included, were quite upset that Clark chose not to contest Wisconsin because Clark had a very strong organization there and had been running a strong second in the polls there, well ahead of both Dean and Edwards. That's a fact, so your supposition about Clark's support in Wisconsin is dead wrong.

Clark dropped out after Tennessee because he is a strategist and it had become clear to him that no one was going to stop Kerry, no one. Once that was obvious to him, Clark felt it was best for the November campaign if he quickly closed ranks behind Kerry. Other candidates reached different conclusions.

As to the Midwest, besides Wisconsin, Clark also had a strong support in Ohio, but that state did not vote while Clark was running. Clark got traction, he didn't get coverage, and we disagree on the meaning of that and have for almost a year so I doubt that is going to change now.

[AP]

110. Tom, you can't pretend that comparing 1sts, 2nds, 3rds and 4ths tells you

anything either. For example, Clark's 2d in NM doesn't suggest he was strong there. He got 20.9k votes, lost to Kerry 23K votes. He was only ahead of Dean by 4.2k. He was clearly in a second tier in NM and only Kerry was in the first tier.

By talking just about how they placed, you ignore the fact that he only narrowly won the small low-turnout state he won, and in other important states with big turnout, where all the candidates fought for votes, where they were directly communicating with the voters, and where you would have thought beign a southerner would have helped, he was blown out (VA and SC). In MO not only was he way out of the first and second tier of candidates, he got half the votes Dean got, which puts him in a fourth tier.

So take out Wisconsin if you want (although I guarnatee you he wasn't polling well there the day before he dropped out when people were thinking he was still an option) and this is what you get:

K:1, 090.8
E: 615.9
C: 381.7
D:256.5

It still makes Edwards 1 and 2/3 the candidate Clark was up to that point.

And if your theory is that Clark and Kerry were fighting over the same voters, maybe he dropped out before WI so that Edwards wouldn't win, eh?

How many votes do you think Clark would have gotten had he remained in the race? I suspect it wouldn't have been that much (I think his message would have resonate there little more than it resonated in MI or MO (I think most of his appeal was military and regional). But if it were as little as 50K and you're right that all his support went to Kerry, then he was the reason Edwards didn't win WI. But I don't believe that's the case.

[Tom Rinaldo]

112. Actually Clark came in second in New Mexico, not third

And he almost doubled Edwards' total there: 19,838 to 10,953. Clark came in second in Arizona also, and the spread there was much wider over Edwards: 60,109 to 15,583. So you would have to admit that Clark was showing significantly greater strength in the Southwest than Edwards, and the Southwest was a neutral region with no favorite son states, unlike the South. The Southwest, like the rust belt, is a region that the Democrats have to win to offset the Republican dominated South, but unlike the rust belt it is rapidly growing.

I have a business partner who lives in Oklahoma by the way, I spend time there every year. Those people are truly nuts about College sports. They even elected a black Republican to Congress (Stokes) because he had been a star quarterback for an Okie school. There ain't hardly any Blacks in Oklahoma, but he was a sports hero so they elected him. Edwards got the endorsement of the all time greatest OK college football coach (whose name now escapes me because I am not wild about sports) and he roto called every voter in the State for Edwards with a personal pitch, that's how Edwards closed the gap in Oklahoma. By that stage of the campaign the media already had Clark on a death watch. The only publicity Clark got was when one of his staff cars got a speeding ticket in Oklahoma, yet Clark still won the state.

By the way my theory isn't that almost all Clark's support went to Kerry after Clark dropped out. I don't believe that. Clark also had an outsiders appeal. There was always the Michael Moore aspect of his constituency. Many Clark supporters broke to Dean, Kucinich, or Edwards rather than back a Senate fixture like Kerry. I suggested the opposite, that most Kerry supporters would have broken to Clark had Kerry fallen out of the race. The primary race in New Hampshire offered evidence of that. Kerry started out as a favorite son there, but once it looked like Dean was killing him, Kerry supporters moved over to Clark and Clark's numbers began a rapid increase, briefly eclipsing Dean at one point before the Iowa contest. Edwards did not benefit from Kerry's decline in New Hampshire, Clark did. However once Kerry started looking like a winner again in Iowa, his long time supporters in New Hampshire, for whom Kerry had been a regular presence on their TV's for decades, returned to Kerry and Clark lost a portion of that support, but he still beat out Edwards even without Iowa momentum).

Edwards was always the more blatant Southerner in the race, complete with a Southern accent, and he made that a strong part of his case for the nomination, building on the Clinton, Gore model. Clark didn't do that anywhere near the extent that Edwards did. Clark didn't live in the South for most of his adult life because he was in the military and stationed elsewhere. Edwards became the obvious regional favorite son. Still Clark showed good strength in Tennessee where he ran a solid third, winning 18 delegates to Edward's 20. And I dare say the whole Election might have played out differently if Arkansas voted the week after New Hampshire, rather than Edward's birth State of South Carolina.

Can we stop this now? I am not putting Edwards down. I only posted in reply to someone who claimed that Clark's performance was pitiful compared to Edward's, and that was absolutely false so I said so.

[AP]

114. See post 111.

Clark was in a third tier by himself. Dean in the fourth tier by himself, and Edwards is a second tier by himself.

Who's this "Stokes" guy? Are you thinking of J.C. Watts? His father was a very prominent Democrat in OK politics, by the way.

[Tom Rinaldo]

115. Yup. I was thinking of Watts. My mistake. He is someone I would

rather forget lol. I wasn't aware of his family background. What position did his father hold?

edited to add: For what it's worth the "Stokes" I mentioned, I now realize, was J.J. Stokes, an African American wide receiver for the S.F. 49'ers during a period when I was a nominal fan of the team. I had sports on the brain, lol.

[FrenchieCat]

127. And don't forget

AP that Edwards got way more free media than Clark...and positive media at that.

You might not buy the media bias, but that doesn't make it go away. A political studious gal like you should really understand the media a little better than you seem to understand them when it comes to Edwards' fawning primary "he's just great" publicity.

Also, don't forget that South Carolina voters voted earlier than the southwest states on mini Tuesday. And how early was South Carolina called for Edwards? After 1% of the votes had been counted. That allowed your Corporate media (cause it sure ain't mine) to call the race for Edwards (over and over again) while southwest voters were still voting. I remember being mad as hell, but there was not a thing I could do about it.

The media made Edwards 2nd tier, and influenced voters to go with a winner....like they always do.

How can you even deny such that is so obvious? I don't get it.

[AP]

129. What good was the free media if he didn't even start to make gains until

the last three days of each primary...when he was running ads, making personal appearances, and getting less whorish local media coverage?

Seriously, before the last three days of the campaign, it's mostly national media that they get. According to mediatenor.org, for Edwards that meant mostly nice "personality" stories, and nothing about his stance on the issues, and not even horserace coverage (he was relegated to, "he's VP materia"l -- which isn't even horserace coverage). The result? Single digit poll numbers. But in the last three days when people learned about his stance on the issues, boom. Geometric increases in the polls (while other candidates went down as a result of non-mediated up-close looks).

[FrenchieCat]

132. Your reality is you own,

and I understand your plight. However, calling Edwards' birth state after 1% of the votes had been counted, via "exit polls" and "projections" for Edwards, over and over again in national television coverage on mini tuesday, while Southwesterners were still voting was one of the ways the media manipulated the Democratic elections to help Edwards. It didn't quite work, but the media would have loved if it had.

Girl, if you can't ADMIT that, all is loast!

[AP]

133. Oh, come on.

That is such week evidence. Who watches PRIMARY coverage???? Furthermore, I can understand this being a concern in a general election where you get all the votes or none in a state. But in primaries? Once you hit the threshold, you get your delegates. There's always a reason to vote, and election coverage from SC isn't going to significantly reduce your motivation. For this to be a compelling argument, you're going to have give me a little more of the narrative. Explain to me the psychology of an AZ voter who hears Edwards won a state he was favored to win.

And if you want to talk about coverage of Edwards, talk about this:

How about him going on every single MSM show and having to answer the question whether he's really running for VP?

The MSM labeled him the VP as soon as they were done spending a week on the Dean scream.

That guaranteed he'd get as little steam for NH as possible and that nobody would think of him as a legitimate presidential candidate.

What about all the evidence in the mediatenor.org reports--he got the least coverage of anyone, and it was only personality coverage?

What about the fact that when you have people in the Deliberative Poll -- a group least likely to be spun by the media -- they preferred Edwards. If you need any evidence that the media could have made Edwards the nominee and president if they wanted to, it was that Poll. If the media couldn't even convince people to do what they were inclined to do after digesting as much evidence as possible and having experts respond to their questions, then the media is clearly not trying to get people to act in their best interests.

Seriously -- you think the media was trying to make Edwards the nominee? Why was the Deliberative Poll able to turn Edwards into the favorite just by having people read about the candidates on the issues, answering their questions, and giving them access to experts, but the MSM couldn't achieve that with Total Information Control? I think it's more likely that the MSM know what should have been obvious without the Deliberative Poll: if you know about Edwards, he's going to beat Bush better than 48:37, so make sure that the best he does is VP.

(Why have you suddenly decided to give me a gender, BTW? That's two posts out of your last three. After going hundreds of posts without ever giving me a gender, two out of three qualifies as an obsession. Why now? Do you think I'm EE? I'm flattered if you do, but her spelling, vocabulary and grammar is much better than mine.)

[ZootSuitGringo]

152. Does it matter?

About your gender, I mean?

I think you make some good points, but I think that it's all moot. Neither won, both did pretty well, considering. Kerry got the nomination.

[AP]

157. It seems that it suddenly matters to someone...

...since it was never an issue before, but now it has been mentioned in two of the last three posts. Anyway, you're asking the wrong person if it matters.

[AP]

111. Another comment about "cheating": You say that Clark's 125k advantage over

Dean during the first 13 primaries indicates a significant advantage over Dean, putting them in completely different tiers. But you say that his 235k vote deficit vs Edwards puts them in the same tier?

Ahem.

You want to compare votes to place Dean vs Clark, but what are you comparing to place Clark vs Edwards? By your measure, perhaps Edwards was in the same tier as Kerry!

[Tom Rinaldo]

113. Yes

This was posted from you while I was writing my last post to you, so I will be brief. Kerry was 475,000 votes ahead of Edwards after February 10th. But more to the point, the way most observers gage Primaries is by numbers of States won, and Kerry won 11 while Edwards and Clark each won one while Dean didn't win any of the contests that Clark was in. That's pretty clear cut. Especially when you factor in that Edwards and Dean competed in Iowa while Clark was absent, which in retrospect was a huge advantage for Edwards. Given the compressed schedule and the way the media played it, the Iowa race set the tone for the entire season.

Outside of the South, Clark overall finished higher in the races both he and Edwards competed in, and unlike Kerry Dean and Edwards, Clark never had favorite or near favorite son status in any State he ran in.

So yes. Kerry with 11 victories is alone in the first tier. Edwards and Clark with one victory each were in the second tier, (with Edwards ahead within it) and Dean outdistanced the rest of the pack putting him in tier three. I don't think that's cheating.

[AP]

116. Most commentators do not measure primary performance by states won.

The nominee isn't even selected by states won.

Why was it good enough for you to compare Dean and Clark by total votes over those primaries, but not Clark and Edwards?

It's by number of delegates that you win the nomination, and you get delegates in proportion to your vote total once you pass a threshold.

We could compare candidates by delegates if you want, but I think it's more fair to Clark to count all the votes and ignore the threshold, because it gives him credit for votes in states where he didn't cross the threshold, and it doesn't penalize him for Iowa too much, since there were less than 5k voters in IA. (What you lose is the fact that uncontested, low turnout states actually have more delegates than some of the high turnout states, like MI vs SC, but even that fact is an advantage for Clark, since he got twice as many votes in SC compared to MI).

BTW, Before WI and excluding NV and IA, outside the SE, Edwards beat Clark in ME, DE, MI, MO, WA by over 98,000 votes (85,000 of which came from MO). (He also beat him in every other state - TN, VA and SC).

Clark beat Edwards in NH, OK, NM, ND, AZ by about 50,000 votes (47,000 of which came from AZ). That's 5 states to 5 outside the SE, with almost 50,000 more votes for Edwards net. If Clark wasn't competing for that many votes, that's a strategic error on his part, I guess.

If you're basing the statement, "outside of the South, Clark overall finished higher in the races both he and Edwards competed in" on only three states: NH, OK, and NM, all I have to say is "MO." I also have to say, it's revealing that you have to cast such a narrowl net before you find good news for Clark -- we're down to three states out of 13, two of which were, by no means, blowouts for Clark (NH and OK) and one which was a blowout for everyone buy Kerry (NM).

Edwards and Clark both competed in NH and OK (with Edwards pulling out staff, and only doing robocalls in the last week in OK, and Edwards originally planning to send all staff from IA to SC, skipping the last week of NH campaigning, until he realized that he did so well in IA -- and, mind you, Clark had camped out in NH for a month). In those two states Clark's advantage was only 1.5k, and NM gave him 10k. So he was +11k on those three. Add in MO, and he's -74K.

And another thing to remember, even in NH, OK, and NM, Edawards was going up in the polls each of three days before those primaries. In fact, strategic decisiosn in OK were based on three and four day out polls that improved over the subsequent days after the strategic decisons were made. Edwards was always going up, while others were going down.

In that mix, I'll take the candidate who can kill in the Midwest (because he's talking their language), who is consistently doing better as more people get to know him or her (unmediated by the MSM), and has southern roots any day. That's Edwards.

[Tom Rinaldo]

122. One more round.

When you wrote: "If you're basing the statement, "outside of the South, Clark overall finished higher in the races both he and Edwards competed in" on only three states: NH, OK, and NM, all I have to say is "MO." " , why did you leave out Arizona and North Dakota, both states outside the South where Clark beat Edwards? Both men put up only token campaigns in a number of the states in which they did poorly, but I left them all in the mix. What I was referring to when saying Clark did better "outside the South" were those states where at least one of the men scored reasonably well, eliminating States like Maine and Washington where Edwards came in 4th, and Clark came in 5th. Counting those States, they tied.

Regarding delegates won, in the 13 states in which Kerry Edwards Clark and Dean all competed, Kerry won 354 delegates, Edwards won 113, Clark won 77, and Dean won 67. If you use that as a standard then one could say there were only three tiers; Kerry in the first, Edwards Clark and Dean in the second, and everyone else in the third.

Again, all my comments were made in the context of debunking the statement that Clark had pitiful results compared to Kerry and Edwards, when and where Clark was in the race. Yes Edwards had overall better results than Clark, but Kerry roiled over both of them, relatively speaking. Some here on DU, and I am not putting you in this category AP, cling to the notion that Clark did horribly in the Primaries, and that is patently untrue. You talk about Edwards being absent from New Hampshire for a month, but Clark was absent from New Hampshire for a year, compared to Dean Kerry and Edwards who were barnstorming the state long before Clark entered.

But it's all history anyway. Kerry won hands down. Still Gore was a flop in 1988 the first time he ran for the Democratic nomination, but in a fair universe he would be President now. Some were unimpressed with Clark during his first run in 2004, others were deeply impressed by him. But 2004 was the first time in his life that Clark campaigned for any office, and he had a steep leering curve to master at the highest level. Whatever anyone thought of Clark as a campaigner in 2004, he is so much better now, and Clark still has a few more years to master the art further. I'm sorry AP, I know we disagree here, but I was not greatly impressed by Edwards as a campaigner as our VP nominee last year. I think he did well, but not exceptionally well. I'll take Clark with 3 more years under his belt, but I know both of us would work hard for either man if he ends up with the nomination in 2008.

[AP]

128. - I'll include AZ...

...if you want to talk about vote totals. I'll exclude it if you want to talk about states where both candidates competed.

- Did I exclude ND? See paragraph 6 post 116. (Incidentally, it looks like a similar distribution to NM but with 1/8th the voters -- Kerry at the top with 5k, Clark with half that that and Edwards half of that. And, wasn't Clark the only candidate to go there?)

- A year. A month. What really matters is the last three or four days, when everyone is paying attention. Whe candidates can circumvent the mediated coverage of the campaign and talk directly to the people with personal appearances, tv & radio spots, and/or local media, which is less crappy than national media in terms of spinning shit. And that's why I'll pick Edwards. He always went up in the last three days, no matter what other hurdles he was trying to clear.

- Mediatenor.org had a breakdown of GE coverage of the VP candidates. Edwards was mentioned half as often as Cheney. If Edwards had been a week candidate with a less compelling story, he would have been covered more, I'm sure. Regardless, I thought he was great, and huge audiences for him everywhere he went confirm that for me. And he made the shift from telling his own compelling story to telling a compelling story about Kerry extremely well. Anyway, it sounds a little silly to me to discount Edwards because of what he did as VP nominee when you have an incredible zero to 120 mph primary campaign and a lot of common sense (that the Deliberative Poll results capture) telling you something else.

- Gore was a bad campaigner in '88 AND '00. That's why he lost. He should have won in '00, and he would have had he been a better campaigner.

[Clark2008]

162. Most commentators are idiots, too.

But that hasn't seemed to stop them.

AP, honey, Edwards is gone. Let him do good deeds with the poor - I'm all for that, but, in the South, huh-uh, he never was all that popular here to begin with.

I'm very Southern and I never heard a peep about him: no grassroots, not strong hold. I still maintain he only came in second in my state because neo-cons voted for him. I have my own proof, but no links. I live here - that's enough.

[CarolNYC]

119. Tom,

you are incredibly patient.

[AP]

120. Who doesn't have patience here?

The important thing is being persuasive, and I'm definitely not conceding that one to Tom.

Still want to know why he didn't give Edwards's vote total in his first post in this subthread and why vote totals put Dean and Clark in different tiers but didn't put Edwards and Clark and different tiers.

[CarolNYC]

121. In answer to your question "Who doesn't have patience here?"...

....Me! LOL!

[Sparkly]

130. Me neither

Two words: Iowa momentum.

Three more: 2004 Is Over.

:eyes:

[Tom Rinaldo]

124. Because I was differentiating between Dean and Clark

Explaining why I did not put them both in the same tier. There were two factors separating Dean and Clark. One was the fact that Clark had a significantly higher percentage of total votes than Dean, the second was that Clark won a primary and Dean didn't even come close to winning one (Dean's second place finishes were not close).

The vote total difference was the primary factor differentiating Edwards and Clark, and in my opinion (I know we differ) that was the result of free media in large population states, as I already explained. You may not agree, but that is the answer to your question. And I really do have to stop now, I have to pick up a friend at the airport.

[AP]

131. I think that WI proves that Dean was more viable than Clark later in...

the process in states that really mattered, although both of them were on a downward slope before February started -- and ND, first places, second places are distractions from the obvious truth.

I am sure Clark dropped out of WI because of his numbers. There's no way that he was going to get near Dean's 150k, and he probably realistically would only have matched his not-so-impressive MI numbers, which was a state where Dean also did well despite the race long being over for him.

If you want to compare Dean and Clark, I think the thing that captures that relationship is that they were remarkably similar results through similar routes. Both Dean and Clark were jockeying for the top of the national polls and were the favorites in December.

Dean lost in IA. There was no way he was going to come back from not meeting expectations (which is what the primaries are all about -- if you lose, but exceed expectations, you win). Nonetheless, he appealed to very specific demographic which loved him and was remarkably sticky in the rust belt swing states (which has turned out to be a good thing since, as DNC chief, he's going to mobilize those forces for the power of good).

Clark failed to impress in NH, which is where he promised to excel. Top that off with his SC results -- a southern, heavily ex-military state, and his slope was clearly going the wrong direction. His sticky demographic showed in AZ, and in small states, and in TN (but didn't look like it was congealing in places like the rust belt swing states, but that's fine because in WI he told them to vote for Kerry).

Where'd the two of them end? With remarkably similar totals in votes and delegates by the time each pulled the plug on his campaign, which was around WI (and, as I said, even though Clark dropped out just before WI, I think it's pretty clear what was going to happen there had he stayed in the race).

[dogman]

135. Did you watch the news at all?

WI is where Clark appeared with Kerry and gave him his full endorsement. To hold a candidate to some standard after he has withdrawn and gone public with a full endorsement for another candidate is just plain ridiculous. Clark's stated goal in NH was to come in second since there were three NE candidates in the field. The only surprise in NH was Edwards had momentum coming from his good showing in Iowa. If you were familiar with what went on at the ground level in these states you would better understand how Kerry took the lead and then held it.

[AP]

136. How many votes do you think Clark would have gotten had he stayed in?

And don't you think part of the reason he dropped out before and Dean dropped out after WI was because they saw the polls. Dean saw that he was going to get in the 150k range, and Clark probably saw that he was going to get in the 20k-40 range (he ultimately got 12). What do you think Clark would have gotten if he contested WI?

Clark's message probably resonated in WI as well as it resonated in MI, and I'm sure that's a big reason that he dropped out days before WI.

Clark promised to be competitive in NH. He wasn't. And if he promised second place, then he still failed to meet expectations and was on a downward slope from NH on.

And I never said Kerry didn't take the lead and hold it. I've said that the other candidates should be measured by whether their slope was up or down. Clark and Dean were fighting for first place in national polls in December. Their first primaries were disappointments. Once you disappoint in the primaries, you generally don't recover. A third place can be a victory, if you've exceeded expectations. But a second place isn't, if you were favored three days earlier. It means people aren't sticking with you and that they like someone else the more they hear about that other candidate -- and that's what's key about primaries. Everybody presumes that the nominee will get publicity, so the key is that when people hear about you, will they like what they hear. Candidates who watch their support falter and go to other candidates (such as Dean and Clark) don't satisfy that key criteria.

[Tom Rinaldo]

138. ARG Poll WI Feb 6 2004: Kerry 41%, Clark 15%, Edwards 10%, Dean 9%

And here is a link backing my earlier statements to you to contrast with your uninformed guessing: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/2/7/181842/7339

Following that poll Clark did much better than Dean during the February 10th Primaries. Even if we go with the assumption that both Clark and Dean were sinking as of that date, Dean was sinking faster than Clark.

So, regarding the then upcoming Wisconsin Primary; Where on earth are you coming up with your statement that: "Dean saw that he was going to get in the 150k range, and Clark probably saw that he was going to get in the 20k-40 range"?

You are making up facts to fit your bias AP. None of us know what would have happened in Wisconsin had Clark stayed in but your speculation is baseless and contrary to the available evidence.

Clark had strong support in Wisconsin. Here are some clips from the Badger Herald, Feb 9th 2003:

"Gen. Wesley Clark spoke at an economy forum hosted by Gov. Jim Doyle in Racine Sunday, answering local residents’ questions about his stance on the issues and why he is the best choice for the democratic nomination...

Although Gov. Doyle made it clear he would not endorse any candidate, he praised Clark as a man with “broad political experience” who would make a good president. Doyle’s Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton is Chair of Clark’s Wisconsin campaign and has recently been criticized by state Republicans for allegedly campaigning on state time."

http://badgerherald.com/news/2004/02/09/clark_speaks_at_gov_.php

I repeat. Clark withdrew from Wisconsin because he realized that no one, absolutely no one, would be able to stop Kerry's momentum and eventual winning of the nomination. Kerry, the "Liberal Senator from Massachusetts", had just beaten both Edwards and Clark in two Southern Primaries. Like; Hello? Clark was absolutely right. Edwards eventually won the State he represented in the Senate, Dean won the State he was Governor of, and Kerry won everything else, usually by huge margins.

In the course of staying in the race Edwards got a ton more of favorable (despite constantly losing) free publicity however, which helped Edwards secure the VP spot. During that same time Clark was working for Kerry to help him prepare for the November race agaiinst Bush.

[AP]

139. In the three weeks after Feb 6, some people went up, some went down...

...and that is the measure, if you ask me, of who was a good candidate and who wasn't.

Free press or no free press for Edwards, he didn't start shifting up from low poll numbers, like the Feb 6 ARG poll until the last three days before primaries. What was happening then? An intensity of free national press? Nope. What was shifting those numbers was one on one contact with voters, commercials, and better local coverage of candidates, circumventing the national press interpretation of the candidates (which, for Edwards was unhelpful, "he's running for VP/nice personality/don't ask me about his policies" coverage).

[Tom Rinaldo]

143. Less than 2 weeks actually, WI was Feb 17th.

One of the things that was happening in the three days before the Primary was that Clark withdrew from the race on the 12th, so the media was finally able to accurately depict the fight for the nomination as a two man race between Kerry and Edwards (though they had inaccurately been all but saying that for weeks previously).

Look AP, as I said numerous times above, my intent in this thread was never to take anything away from Edwards, rather it was to correct distortions and misinformation about Clark, including your earlier speculation about how poorly you assumed he had been running in Wisconsin. For that reason I won't go further into discussing the various factors involved in Edward's late surge. I have no interest in belittling Edward's accomplishments, nor do I want to engage in endless rehashing of the 2004 Primaries. Kerry won the nomination in 2004, and no one else came close. 2008 will be a whole new story.

[AP]

147. Clark went from first place in WI polls in November IIRC (18% with lots...

of undecideds, but with about 50% more than the next person) down to a three way fight for 2nd place with one candidate who was consistently surging from the bottom, and utimately a contender for first place in WE (Edwards), and with another who was finding loyal support and a demographic goldmine in swing and NE states (Dean) despite finding little luck outside those areas and not managing first places.

That's the point I'm making.

Or, to put it more precisely, these are the points I'm trying to make:

(1) I am trying to point out how misleading it is to compare relative placings, when looking at the actual gaps between places reveals so much more (and, to repeat, nobody measures primary performance by states won -- that's not how we chose the nominee, and it tells you nothing about the direction they were headed or the breadth of their appeal) -- people care about delegates you win, and after that they care about how many votes you got, and after that, they care about whether your appeal increases or decreases as more voters become familiar with you;

(2) I am challenging the assertion that Clark and Edwards were together on a second tier -- the only way you can make that claim is by non-sensically narrowing your concerns to place finishes (and further narrowing your analysis to three, or so states (see also point 1); and

(3) I am and arguing that the most important measure for a candidate if you're trying to decide who has potential and who doesn't, and you want to discount media, money, organization, etc., is whether more people liked the candidate the more they hear directly from the canidate, and two of the best ways to determine that is to look at the Stanford/UT/PBS deliberative poll and to look at what happens in the last three days in any primary, when the voters are being inundated with commercials, and personal appearances, and local media (which is a little less loyal to Wall St and shareholders, and more loyal to their audience than national media). That's the least mediated moment of the campaign, and it's when people are paying the most attention. People who go up in the last few days are good candidates with a lot of potential. People who go down in the last few days are bad candidates, without much potential.

You opened the door to all three of these points in your post up above.

[Tom Rinaldo]

149. Fine. Challenge my assertion that Clark & Edwards shared the second tier

You have your arguments and I have mine. Mine, as stated in numerous posts above, are far more complex than the brief summary of them that you just cited, and yours probably are also.

But I think it all is far less complex than either of us have written. I think the results were mostly ordained by two words; Iowa Momentum. That and a very tight front loaded primary schedule that greatly enhanced the role of free media coverage, and the fact that the media then mostly covered the contests as a horse race rather than far ranging discussion of issues. Iowa, in which Clark did not compete, set the template. Kerry as the overwhelming favorite (since he was about to win NH in his own backyard the next week also) and Edwards as his major challenger. Barring a stupendous mistake or scandal involving Kerry, Edwards never had a ghost of a chance of catching Kerry, and Clark was dealt a very uphill struggle to have any chance of catching Edwards.

I still remember the New York Times coverage the day after the NH Primary. There was a big chart with the results and photos of all the candidates laid out in order of their finish. With one exception. They had a big smiling face of John Edwards in the third place column next to Howard Dean in second place with Wes Clark in the fourth slot. The text noted that Clark came in third and Edwards fourth, but the actual lay out spoke volumes.

So, for the time preceding Wisconsin, go ahead and put Edwards in the Second Tier all by himself if that is your view, with Clark in the Third Tier, and Dean in the Fourth Tier. Or divide it up anyway you see fit. Kerry had it all wrapped up after Iowa. Clark entering the race a year or more after Kerry, Dean, and Edwards, with the result that he bypassed Iowa, ultimately doomed Clark's candidacy. Even so, Clark was running third when he dropped out, surpassing Dean, Kucinich, Lieberman, Graham, Sharpton, and Gephardt. Eddwards came in a distant second to Kerry. End of story.

[AP]

156. Your second paragraph is relevant if we're talking about who could have

won the 2004 nomination, which is not what I thought this discussion was about.

I thought this discussion was about who was a good candidate and who was well received by the public -- ie, who was in what relative tier -- ie, who could win in 2008.

So I'll accept your concession at the front of your last paragraph.

As for the remainder of that paragraph -- Clark being disadvantaged by entering late -- he was still at the top of the polls in December, and he still managed to match Dean, and he was well-funded, and didn't have a problem running commercials, and making personal appearances, and getting local coverage between NH and WI. So, we'll see if more organization and preparation will help him in 2008, or if he had reached a glass ceiling in terms of his appeal, which only a rehaul of his message could improve upon (and, looking at his appeal in the swing/rust belt states, and judging from his appearance in Erie, where he refered to the Sandburg poem about Chicago, it seems that he might be intentionally or unconsciously trying to repair the chink in his armor that I think is apparent once you reflect on his 2004 primary battle).

As for that NYT article -- Edwards was in the lead in NH all day. IIRC, he didn't start slipping back until about 11pm. It's very possible that the NYT put that story out on a deadline, at a time when it did reflect the truth, and when there was little reason to believe that the results were going to change much from the day long trend of Edwards being ahead or Clark. (Incidentally, Edwards fell back in GA and one other state IIRC -- after being ahead all day. IIRC, those states were all BBV states, and Edwards was the only candidate to whom this happened. Interesting, eh? Perhaps the NYT was also relying on exit polls for that NH story?)

Anyway, Edwards should have been smiling, because even 4th probably represented a doubling or tripling of his numbers compared to eight days earlier. He should have been confident that, so long as he could tell voters directly what he stood for, he could win votes.

[CarolNYC]

168. that Sandburg poem

FWIW, he recited a passage from that poem during the dreaded Republican fundraiser speech.

He also spoke of how the US uses five to eight times as much energy per capita as people in the rest of the world, of getting AIDS drugs to the people of Africa, of breaking the back of greed and corruption and illicit wealth from the diamond mines, of how there needed to be an economic and political solution to the problems in Colombia rather than a military one, and how America needs to live up to the expectations for good that the rest of the world has about us.

[Tom Rinaldo]

150. Self Delete. Wrong placement. n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

151. Post #149 of mine was meant to reply to post #147 of yours.

The software is screwing up and attaching replies to the wrong parent thread. I just figured that out.

[Crunchy Frog]

126. How dare you introduce logic into a discussion

of this nature Tom! :spank:

[Dinger]

105. Yeah, Once He Dropped Out, His Number Were Way Down

I recently came across a tape of Clark on CNN, late Jan. 2004.
He was in a tight race with dean for first place, with Edwards and Kerry a distant 3rd/4th place. Two weeks later, Kerry moved into first place (48-50% support vs. 11 % in Jan. '04). How does that happen??? For the record, I like Dean, and if Clark was not the nominee, I'd pick Dean over Edwards or Kerry.
The Clark blackout began in earnest when he won Oklahoma. In my opinion, the media "decided" Clark's fate, courtesy of KKKarl Rove.
I think Clark will run in 2008, and I think his VP will be Feingold or Boxer.

[Texas_Kat]

86. Hmmmmmm....

What you have failed to understand is that there are a 'huge quantity of Clark supporters" EVERYWHERE. :grouphug:

:kick:

[sellitman]

91. Huge Quantities?

Ok...whatever you say. :shrug:

[ArkDem]

87. You are showing an obvious bias against slow blinking

politicians!B-)

[Totally Committed]

88. "Politician"

He may have run for office, and he may someday again, but one of the reasons that I love Wes so much is that he is NOT a "politician", in the "hack" sense of the word. He owes no Special Interests any favors, and tells it like it is -- really is. No "politician" would be caught dead acting like that, Arky!

TC

[Crunchy Frog]

94. Ok,

I guess some people prefer the rapid blinking of Bush. Rapid blinking is associated with lying. I'm glad to know that it's what you seem to prefer.

[VOX]

90. This Edwards booster would support Clark in a heartbeat...

Clark would kame a fine candidate, in all regards.

[DemDogs]

159. Not this one -- I don't want to see the tapes again

Imagine if we nominated Clark. Do you think we would see his speeches at Republican fundraisers again as commercials? Can you imagine ANY other candidate we might nominate who would have spoken at a Republican fundraiser? He said he couldn't reveal his true political positions when he was in the military (though plenty of active military do), but when he was out he could. How old was he then? He certainly knew what he believed, or so we should hope.
If he is a real Democrat, would he have appeared? Everyone knows what the answer is. Clark supporters will have a thousand excuses, but NO OTHER CANDIDATE would have considered it. Why? Because they are Democrats.
And when he did get in the Democratic race, he kept using Republican phrases, like saying he was "pro-abortion".
So if he goes anywhere and adopts any position, is he "too liberal" or "too moderate"? Neither, his party has his name on it, not ours.

[Crunchy Frog]

161. Why is it that people keep referring to one single event

in the plural, in order to make it sound as if it were a continously recurring phenomenon rather than one single event. I'm beginning to wonder if people on this board can count past the number one.

This one single event happened at a time when Clark was voting Democratic, but still thinking of himself as non-partisan, and was being courted by both parties. He spoke at a similar Democratic fundraiser not long afterwards.

Why is it that I suspect that had he decided to go the Republican route, he would have been accepted despite having attended a Democratic fundraiser. And we Democrats wonder why we keep losing. Well, that's not a question that I ask myself anymore.

My guess is that we would not see "those tapes" if Clark were the nominee. They would essentially be seen by moderate Republicans as giving them permission to abandon the Repug party and therefore encourage more crossover votes. I can't recall, when Reagan got the nomination did we see alot of footage of him from his days as a Democrat? If we had, do you think it would have hurt him in the election?

I'm not expecting any kind of answer to this. I find that I usually encounter deafening silence when I present an intelligent rebuttal to this sort of post.:)

[CarolNYC]

169. There's a reason....

....why the Republicans released the tape when they did. They knew the primaries were where it would have an adverse effect. And, of course, they desperately wanted Clark out of the race and they knew they could count on the Democrats to help do the dirty work for them if they just pushed the right buttons. That crew may be evil but they're not stupid.

I think you're right and we would not see "those tapes" if Clark got the nomination.

[knight_of_the_star]

92. Just look at his tax policy

Elimination of all payroll taxes for families of 4 or more that make combined $50k a year or less, eliminating corporate tax loopholes, and raising taxes on the million dollar a year and up bracket. If that isn't liberal I don't know what is.

[in_cog_ni_to]

102. That tax plan was awesome. The man is brilliant.

We really missed the boat when we didn't elect him. :( What a loss. <sigh>

[in_cog_ni_to]

101. Wes Clark and Howard Dean were the 2 MOST liberal

Dem candidates running. He's not even close to moderate or far right. His website is still up, I think. You could go and read what his policies were/are.

I HOPE he wins the '08 Primary. That would be sweeeeeeeeeeet! :loveya:

[karynnj]

142. Kerry had a more liberal record than Dean

It's hard to compare Clark as he had no public record. Although Kerry was not the most Liberal Senator he was pretty Liberal.

[LittleClarkie]

164. Yep, even Dean didn't call Dean a liberal

in fact he said that if he's considered a Liberal in the party, it shows how far to the right the party has gone.

So that is indeed a misnomer.

[zulchzulu]

123. Pick the states where he would be strong in

I'm not convinced. Heck, I like Wes...met him..shook his hand...saw him speak...have it on video...but...him winning the nomination in 2008?

Granted, it's a long ways away.

[Capn Sunshine]

154. I think Clark could pick up FL and OK

plus maybe GA and TN , just in the south. He would poll very strongly in the Blue states, no question. I think he has a shot at Southern states other candidates like Edwards can only dream of.

[zulchzulu]

158. Agreed..but what's he going to be doing...

I could see the marketing of Clark in election mode if he can prove he has a strong background in domestic issues and can display an honest yet reasonably MTV-wonkish-like in the whole package.

Depending on who the Repugs snip and prod about, Clark could do well. Of course, it will be the independent vote that will chose the winner, which of course is presuming we have electronic voting reform solid..otherwise, the repug wins no matter who we run...

[Donna Zen]

160. Let's face it...

The vast majority of Americans vote on their impressions. I don't, you don't, but they do. (I will qualify that statement with IMHO, but I think I'm correct about this.) The DUers whose hair catches on fire at the mention of Clark, mostly do so because of a pre-formed impression of the military. I was one of those people but have dropped my baggage.

The Democratic Party polls consistently well on domestic issues. Clark will not change that impression, what he can do is nudge enough people into believing that the Democrats are strong on national security.

This is great for two reasons: It broadens the base and it frees up congressional Democrats who are now voting for pork barrel Pentagon crap because they are politically afraid to do otherwise.

States to flip (Clark can carry all of the currently blue states including NH, something that the others mentioned may lose) and he can carry:

Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona, .... any really close states with a concentration of military. I've left out states with high concentrations of BBV and GEMS.

One other thing: With Clark at the top of the ticket, the convention can and must highlight our strength: domestic issues. There is no need to trot out the brass when the most decorated one now alive is standing at the podium.

Clark's problem is now and will be getting the nomination in party that is nearly incestuous at times. He could in 2004 and in 2008 win the election. BTW, as a volunteer for Clark, I can assure you that Clark's outsider-non-politician persona was exactly why many people wanted to vote for him.

[ZootSuitGringo]

166. Wouldn't it be great?

To have Clark, as the Democratic President, start cutting all that damn f*cking Pentagon bullshit Pork, without even batting an eyelash (he doesn't blind much, so that part would be easy). Couldn't find a better person to explain why he would be doing it either.

All that money found to fund our Democratic programs even if Bush leaves us bankrupt.

What a Sweeeeet Dream!
Shit, just for that, I'm going to bed...maybe there, this miracle will happen!

[Carolab]

171. We need a governor. Preferably one who "gets" election fraud. n/t