Clark's entry frightens the GOP
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Editorial
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
9/21/03
ajc.com
What happens to President Bush's pseudo-machismo now that a real general has entered the race?
For months now, the prospect of running against Gen. Wesley Clark has been gnawing at GOP strategists, haunting their otherwise pleasant reveries about a bulldozer re-election campaign. They know it took a marketing genius like Karl Rove to sell President Bush as a commanding military leader. Without Rove's Madison Avenue strategy (and the cooperation of a fawning press), Bush, who neglected his duty when he was in the National Guard, would be less Top Gun and more Stop! Run!
Already, Bush's borrowed flight suit has been sullied by the increasingly hazardous situation in Iraq. But when Clark announced his candidacy last week, the calculus of the presidential campaign changed instantly. Now, Bush will find himself compared with a West Point graduate who not only was decorated in Vietnam but who also led a successful military campaign in Kosovo with the cooperation of international allies.
No matter how many photo ops Rove gins up, Bush can no longer count on easily convincing voters that he is the right man for these dangerous times. Clark brings actual military credentials to the campaign.
Clark could yet turn out to be a poor presidential candidate. He is good-looking, accomplished and razor-sharp. But he has a reputation as arrogant and aloof. If he comes across that way on the campaign trail, he'll sink like an old shoe. Bush won, after all, not because of his accomplishments (they were thin) or his policies (voters rejected most of them) but because of his personality. People liked him.
To advance against the platoon of veteran legislators already in the Democratic field, Clark will also have to hone his résumé on domestic issues. His political instincts put him squarely in the mainstream of the Democratic Party: He says he is pro-choice on abortion; he favors affirmative action; he supports environmental protections.
His greatest challenge on the domestic front, however, will be convincing voters that he has a plan to create jobs. (On that subject, though, the president presents no great challenge. Bush has presided over the loss of 2.5 million jobs, a record that rivals Herbert Hoover's.)
Still, a Clark campaign -- even if it is short-lived -- comes at a propitious time because it cuts against the stereotype of Democrats as wimps. Though it's hard to say just how that notion took hold -- a host of well-known Democrats, including Al Gore, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey and Max Cleland, served in Vietnam -- it has hardened as conventional wisdom.
(Perhaps some enterprising academic will write an essay explaining how stereotype so easily overwhelms substance on this subject. Cleland, a former U.S. senator, lost three limbs to a grenade in Vietnam; yet, he was defeated by Saxby Chambliss, who labeled Cleland unpatriotic. Chambliss claims a bad knee kept him out of Vietnam.
(Similarly, the elder President Bush is a bona fide war hero, a torpedo bomber pilot who was shot down in the Pacific in 1944. Yet, hard-right Republicans dismiss the elder Bush as a gutless wonder and hail Junior, who never got within 5,000 miles of the enemy, as a daring flyboy. Go figure.)
That may help explain why thoughtful Democrats in the Senate -- notably, John Kerry -- failed last winter to articulate a rational objection to Bush's rush to invade Iraq. As a decorated Vietnam vet, Kerry had the credentials to point out the flaws in Bush's brief for war. Instead -- perhaps fearing a backlash -- he voted to support it. So now he seems the hypocrite when he tries to criticize Bush's occupation.
Though Clark has been a harsh critic of Bush's strategy on Iraq, he has seemed lately to edge closer to Kerry's position, saying last week that he "probably" would have voted to invade.
But with no vote on the record and with the flexibility to hedge, Clark doesn't have Kerry's problem. Nor does he have Bush's problem: When he goes to a campaign photo op, he doesn't have to borrow a uniform.
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Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. |
