I expect Clark to be History quickly. People see through him.
Clark Express Is Losing Speed
Poised to Be the Anti-Dean, General Struggles as N.H. Race Changes
By Paul Schwartzman and David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 24, 2004; Page A01
NASHUA, N.H., Jan. 23 -- The appearance had a bit of a slapped-together feeling. In an auditorium that was packed for former Vermont governor Howard Dean a week ago, more than two dozen empty seats greeted retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark on Friday.
Carmelle Druchniak, director of college relations at Rivier College, said that Clark's campaign approached her about an event only within the past two days. And 10 a.m. on Friday is not exactly prime time for students, she noted.
"Meet another presidential candidate," yawned a sign outside the hall. After the stump speech, a tough question, off-message: Shouldn't Clark repudiate the charge by filmmaker Michael Moore, a Clark supporter, that President Bush is "a deserter"?
Clark declined, saying that while he "can't agree" with Moore, he is "entitled" to say it.
The whole event was "a mistake," campaign spokesman Matt Bennett allowed afterward, and a far cry from the hundreds of happy supporters who met Clark 10 hours later at a rally in Derry with actor Ted Danson. But it was a fair nutshell for the struggles of the Clark campaign with four days to go to the New Hampshire primary. Having hoped for a surge, Clark has been battling stagnation, spending precious days explaining past positions, grappling with current controversies, and trying to fine-tune both his rhetoric and his campaign organization.
Even Bennett acknowledged that Clark's momentum in the state has slowed since the victory of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) in Monday's Iowa caucuses. Clark's own polls show that undecided voters have moved toward the Iowa winner. "Had anyone considered that John Kerry would win?" Bennett asked. "Kerry's got a lot of momentum here."
In other words, this is not going according to the general's plan.
The problem with this week for Wesley Clark, presidential candidate, is that it is not last week and it is not next week.
Last week, when Dean was still a colossus and most of the Democratic field was in Iowa, Clark was busy in New Hampshire preparing himself for the role of the anti-Dean. That was a heady time of surging poll numbers as the brainy warrior in the Andy Williams sweaters moved into a clear second place.
Next week -- at least as Clark has planned it -- the general will prove to the country that, as a southerner and a military man, he has a special appeal among voters below the gnat line, where so many elections are decided.
But this week, nothing has gone quite right for the novice candidate. Instead of head-to-head combat with Dean, as intended, Clark is in a four- or five-way race to capture the New Hampshire primary. Another decorated veteran -- Kerry -- has bounced to the top in the polls. And another southerner, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) -- the Iowa runner-up -- has popped up to complicate Clark's claims to a cultural edge.
So the would-be man of the hour has been a face in the crowd. His rapid rise in the polls has plateaued. Rather than shaping the race, Clark has been scrambling this week to define himself. In debates, interviews and campaign events, the latecomer to the Democratic donnybrook -- Clark waited until September to declare his candidacy -- has been on the defensive.
"The race is wide open," Clark told reporters -- a statement that was certainly true and certainly not what Clark was hoping to say. He had been hoping for a two-man race.
Anita Dunn, an adviser to Bill Bradley during his 2000 campaign, said that before Iowa, Clark was "very well positioned" as an alternative to Dean. But then the Iowa voters got involved. Clark "expected to find one situation and he found another," she said.
As the dynamics shifted, so has Clark's posture on the stump. Olympian before Iowa, refusing all invitations to distinguish himself from his rivals, Clark has been taking swipes at them this week -- some veiled, some overt. Early this week, the four-star NATO commander dismissed Lt. Kerry, a Bronze Star winner for heroism in Vietnam, as a "junior officer." On Friday, Clark boasted of his "great temperament" in Thursday's debate. "I've been in the kitchen and taken the heat," he added.
Bennett later denied that this was a gibe at Dean.
As Clark's prominence has risen, he has found himself called on to explain and re-explain his position on the war in Iraq -- a stance that was highly nuanced before the conflict, only to harden into staunch opposition since throwing his hat into the ring.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in September 2002 -- as members of Congress were considering a resolution authorizing the war -- Clark repeatedly counseled against using force too quickly, even as he approved of threatening a war as a tool to force action from the United Nations and change from Saddam Hussein.
But Clark also gave credence to statements he now dismisses: that Iraq posed a danger because of likely ties to terrorists and stockpiles of dangerous weapons.
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat," Clark told the panel, calling the Iraqi leader "malevolent and violent" and "to some large degree unpredictable." The general said Hussein "does retain his chemical and biological capabilities to some extent and he is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities."
Clark also said that, although no ties had been proven between Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorist network, "it has to be going on. It has to be."
If Clark's position against the war since has hardened, it might be explained in terms other than pure politics. At the heart of the general's testimony was an insistence that the administration must, before any invasion, make enormous preparations for postwar Iraq. He repeated the warnings in columns he wrote for the Times of London. He has said his criticism of Bush and the Iraq war has deepened because of the failure to prepare for the aftermath.
Another issue dogging Clark: his position on abortion.
Earlier this month, during an editorial board meeting at the Manchester Union Leader, Clark suggested to Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid that he would set no limits on abortion. "I don't think you should get the law involved in abortion," Clark said.
"At all?" McQuaid countered, pressing the point right up to the moment of birth.
"Nope," Clark answered.
But at a news conference Thursday, the general embraced some limitations. "I support Roe v. Wade as modified by Casey," he said, referring to two controlling Supreme Court decisions. "I am not going to go into detail," he added when reporters pressed for more.
Bennett acknowledged that the candidate could have handled the questions "more artfully," and he said the staff had prepped Clark for only five minutes before the appearance. Such awkward moments, he said, are part of being new to politics.
Democratic leaders are not writing Clark off. Despite his late start, the general expects to have more than $15 million in his campaign fund by February, said strategist Chris Lehane. He is running television ads in at least eight states where voters will weigh in during the weeks after New Hampshire, including such Feb. 3 primary contests as South Carolina, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.
In fact, Lehane said, Clark is right where he wants to be -- heading south and west to pick up the pieces after Dean's stumble.
"As an outsider, he is able to bring in people from the outside. He's from the South; he has 34 years of military experience; he has run a war and negotiated a peace; his mom was a secretary, so he understands what it takes to make ends meet," Lehane said, sketching the general as a dream candidate.
"Our goal has always been to be competitive in New Hampshire, and then be strong in the February states," Lehane concluded.
Which means . . . ?
" 'Competitive' means competitive," he answered.
Von Drehle reported from Washington.
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