Wesley Clark's fledgling campaign hits its stride
By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
DES MOINES — Wesley Clark used to run wars. Now, with the same persistence that propelled him to the rank of four-star general and supreme commander of NATO, he is prospecting for support, one vote at a time, in the nooks and crannies of early presidential primary states.
Democratic president candidate Wesley Clark emerges as strong competitor for '04.
"I need you," Clark told a table of Drake University law students at the Drake Diner.
"I like the way he looks on paper," student Stephanie Nielsen said later. "Maybe."
There's no denying the appeal of Clark's star-spangled résumé. After just one month as a politician, the investment banker and CNN commentator from Little Rock has emerged as a strong competitor. Not only has he jumped ahead of his rivals in some polls and raised an impressive amount of money, he is also proving a capable campaigner. But Clark's campaign, unlike those of his well-established rivals, is still very much a start-up. (Audio: USA TODAY's Jill Lawrence discusses Clark)
In week one, he gave conflicting statements on how he would have voted last October on the resolution authorizing force against Iraq. In week two, Democrats learned that he was still a registered lobbyist but not yet a registered Democrat. In week three, he tried out his third traveling press aide, his campaign manager quit and the Washington Post wondered whether he was violating federal election law by giving paid speeches. At the same point, the campaign had few senior aides, no field staff, one domestic policy proposal and no official strategy for winning the nomination.
By week four, however, computers and new aides were trickling in. Clark announced a senior staff, a series of four major speeches starting today, and an official theme: New American Patriotism. He returned money from speeches that he'd given while a candidate and canceled future engagements. And, in a sign that he's viewed as a threat, his rivals ganged up on him in a debate last Thursday night.
Allan Lichtman, a political historian at American University, said the fledgling Clark campaign already has been through an "early glow of adulation" and a phase of heavy criticism. "In phase three we'll see if he can withstand the white heat of a presidential campaign," he said.
Can Clark pull this off? It's not out of the question.
Relentless salesmanship
Despite months of campaigning, no Democrat has emerged as a prohibitive front-runner the way George W. Bush did in 1999. Now comes Clark, with his strong credentials, his opposition to the Iraq war, his TV communication skills, his self-confidence and — not least — his relentless salesmanship.
Last week, he discovered that Iowans are masters of the polite brush-off. "I need your support," he confided on diner crawls in Fort Dodge and Des Moines. "Nice to meet you," they replied, and "Good luck to you," and "Time will tell," and "We'll give you some consideration."
Some of these people were firmly committed to a rival or could not participate Jan. 19 in Democratic caucuses because they were Republicans. But none of that dissuaded Clark, who just kept on peppering them with questions such as, "What would it take for me to get your support?"
To hear Clark tell it, he is a reluctant candidate drawn in by an Internet-based draft movement and pleas from party insiders and donors. He says he didn't make a decision on the race until a month ago, in part for personal reasons. His family was engulfed in preparations for his son's wedding last summer, and he didn't finish writing a book about terrorism and Iraq until Sept. 5.
But there was also this: He wanted to wait until "the people who had dreamed about this all their lives, and prepared their organizations, and really had a right to do this, and the expectation of doing it," took their best shot. "To be honest with you, I deferred to those people and wanted them to go out first and have an opportunity without my entering the race," Clark said in an interview. "I was hoping that they would be very, very successful."
As the field remained undefined, Clark says the pressure on him built. "There was more than an opening," he said. "There was a demand."
Political black hole
Most candidates have long paper trails of votes and positions, and they are familiar personalities in their states and parties. Even Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., the novice of the field until Clark entered, has spent nearly five years in the Senate and had a well-documented legal career before that.
Clark's 34 years in the military amount to a political black hole. He voted for, and served, commanders in chief of both parties. He didn't take public positions on social issues. He did run the 1999 war in Kosovo, but it was a small, short war, and his superiors kept him off TV. If the public knows him at all, it's as a CNN military analyst during the Iraq war.
Even so, there is a surge of interest in Clark. Democrats are not disappointed when they hear him in person. Many come away impressed, if not committed. A recurrent theme: Maybe this guy could beat Bush.
Rick Mullings, an official with Local 514 of the Transportation Workers Union in Tulsa, introduced Clark this way to nearly 200 people at the union hall: "While some folks dress up in military flight suits for photo ops, General Clark is the real thing."
Clark told them unions are necessary to "protect the working man" in the profit-oriented business world. He praised the local for accepting a pay cut to keep American Airlines solvent. "When I'm president, I wanna get you those wages back," he said.
Duane Wittman, 40, a mechanic who served in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm in 1990-91, said Clark's stand on labor issues was "better than I expected," and his military background appealed on two levels: because Wittman is a fellow vet and because "I have to think, too, of who's going to be the best candidate for our party" at a time when "the American people still feel insecure about the world."
Clark sometimes confronts questions about whether he is "a Republican in disguise." But his anti-Bush rhetoric is as sharp as any Democrat since birth. Bush will need "brothers in the 49 other states" to win in 2004, he says to cheers every time. And "if conservatives were compassionate, they wouldn't have to put the adjective in front of it."
Not surprisingly, Clark is detailed when he talks about national security and foreign policy. But for now, he is skating on the surface of domestic issues that other candidates have been steeped in for years, such as education and health care. His customary answer to many questions is "more resources are needed," details to come.
Domestic proposal: Repeal tax cuts for wealthy
His one domestic proposal so far is to repeal $100 billion in the president's tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 and to create jobs by using that money for homeland security and other needs. He also says he would like to see all death-row cases reviewed; labor and environmental standards on all future trade agreements; and higher charges abroad for prescription drugs developed by U.S. companies to lower prices here.
Clark echoes his rivals' critiques of Bush's tax cuts and sounds much like Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean in his blistering judgment that Bush led the nation into an unnecessary war over a non-imminent threat. He even borrows their words — most notably telling voters that "we want to take this country back," a standard Dean applause line.
The difference is that he's Clark. He's bullet-proof on war and peace (no other candidate can make casual remarks like, "I was one of the guys in charge of bombing Saddam Hussein" to enforce a no-fly-zone after the first Gulf War).
And he's got a political style that makes some Democrats salivate over his chances against Bush.
Addressing voters last week in Arkansas, Iowa and Oklahoma, Clark underscored his points with quips. He described his wife, Gert, as "the general's general," joked about the "unmentionable" thing doctors do to you after you turn 50 and had people laughing about his — and their — stock market losses to hammer home the point that relying on the stock market is no substitute for Social Security.
At Coney's 'N' More Café in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Clark offered a table of veterans a matter-of-fact account of his Vietnam experience.
"I made it for seven weeks and then I came home on a stretcher," he said. "It's not the best way to come home. But I was lucky — took four rounds and I got one Purple Heart. ... I got three rounds in one burst. I think I got hit in the rear end as I was crawling away. They shot my rifle out of my hand."
The military formed Clark and infuses his campaign rhetoric in at least two ways that run counter to stereotypes of the armed forces.
One point he makes repeatedly is that a leader's job is to care about and take care of people — not just on battlefields but in homes, schools and neighborhoods. In Clark's case that included making sure troops living with their families had time off to go to parent-teacher conferences.
"I spent my life looking after ordinary soldiers and their families," Clark said at a town hall in Fort Dodge. "It wasn't only about the mission — it was about taking care of the troops," he added in Tulsa.
The other theme Clark carries with him, in a tacit skewering of Bush administration officials who complain about criticism, is the patriotism of speaking your mind. "Democracy's about dialogue, it's about discussion, it's about disagreement, it's about dissension," he told some 400 hometown boosters in Little Rock. "Don't let anybody tell you that people who disagree are unpatriotic."
Clark exercised his right to dissent throughout his service in a supremely hierarchical institution.
He's famous — and controversial within the military — for expressing strong views that contributed both to his rise and the awkward end of his career in 1999. Tensions between Clark and former Defense secretary William Cohen culminated when Cohen named a successor three months before Clark was scheduled to step down as NATO commander.
"I was always the kind of officer who spoke out and said what he believed was right, not what the boss wanted to hear," Clark said in an interview. "I fought to have my professional opinions advanced and adopted as United States policy, and some people took it personally. They shouldn't have. But they did."
Clark, lead military negotiator for the 1995 talks that led to peace in Bosnia, says years of dealing with heads of state, foreign affairs ministers and defense chiefs have prepared him for the presidency.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, introducing Clark at the Fort Dodge town hall, said his military career was a good training ground for electoral politics. "Anyone who can command NATO and keep all of those forces together and win that war (in Kosovo) without losing one American life knows what it means to hold political office," he said.
At the most basic level of the profession, Clark is proving himself a natural. This was apparent from the moment he bounded into Drake's Diner and found a toddler at the first booth. "Do we do baby kisses?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer, just picked up the little boy and kissed his cheek.
Later, asked what has surprised him most about politics, Clark answered without hesitation.
"The joy of just going out and meeting people," he said, and broke into a wide grin. "I just love it." |
