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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (24439)	8/6/2003 8:26:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

John Kerry is back on C-Span right now

To: Mannie who wrote (24439)	8/6/2003 8:46:41 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Josh Marshall has some thoughts... talkingpointsmemo.com (August 5th, 2003 -- 12:12 PM EDT // link) I've been hearing more and more about these Meet-Up meetings for various presidential candidates. So yesterday I stopped by one for Wesley Clark in Washington, DC. Or rather I should say it was for the Draft Wesley Clark group, since Clark isn't even a candidate yet. I can't say I was particularly underwhelmed or overwhelmed by the turn-out or the energy of the folks there. But it's hard for me to judge really since it's the only one of these I've been to. I have a number of friends who are very taken by the idea of a Clark candidacy. And I think I'd say that I'd include myself in that group. At the same time, though, I'm awfully skeptical. Military heroes who get into politics or are drafted into politics are usually big heroes, generals whose popularity is so transcendent that they can literally sweep away all the rest of the contenders from the field. The key examples would be Grant, Eisenhower, Powell (had he chosen to get into the race in 1996). Clark, as much as I admire him (and I do, a lot), simply isn't in that category. And by conventional standards, it's way too late for him to get into the race. It's not at all clear to me that he can push these other contenders from the field simply by throwing his hat into the ring. And will he have the money or the organization or staff that will allow him to do it the old fashioned way? I have my doubts. Here's another issue. One of the big attractions of ex-military candidates is straight talk. Always has been. It signals a no-nonsensism that's one of the big attractions. Yet a while back I remember Clark not only being cagey about whether he was going to be a candidate (that's certainly understandable) but even which party's nomination he'd run for. And that falls a bit short on the no nonsense test. Now I say this as someone who'd really like to see Clark get into this race and catch fire. The national security credentials speak for themselves. And he does have the advantage that none of the other candidates have really pulled away from the pack or demonstrated any serious credibility as national candidates. (Even Dean's momentum --- as important and innovative as it is at the level of technology-assisted grass-roots organizing -- still strikes me as a sign of the weakness of the Democratic field.) I just have my doubts. -- Josh Marshall

To: Mannie who wrote (24439)	8/7/2003 5:43:35 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE TO BEAT BUSH MAY BE GENERAL WESLEY CLARK theatlantic.com <<...can't think of a man and moment better matched than retired general Wesley Clark and the 2004 presidential election. Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 is the only possible comparison. Clark, like Ike, was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Politically scarless and ambidextrous like Ike, Clark served with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the Ford White House and led Bill Clinton's air campaign in Kosovo. As in 1952, with the Korean War stalemated, 2004 may be one of those rare presidential elections in which national security will be the salient issue. Clark is considering running as a Democrat; a draft-Clark movement is urging him to run. He would fill a vacancy. Four of the six serious Democratic candidates gelded themselves by voting for Bush's war. They cannot take Bush on where his strength is—national security and foreign policy. They can only cavil about the details of what by November 2004 will be an unpopular quagmire of an occupation. And if they say Bush deceived them into voting for the war resolution by manipulating the intelligence about Saddam's possession of WMD, they risk being seen as so many George Romneys—"brainwashed" as Romney, then Governor of Michigan, was by the Johnson Administration over Vietnam. Of the two candidates who did not support the war, Howard Dean would lose to Bush —his supporters must face political reality. As for Bob Graham, vehement as he has been about the Administration's subversion of democracy, he is a U.S. senator, and in the last hundred years Americans have elected only two senators. To be sure, they have elected only one General during that time. But if you ask which candidate Bush would least like to run against, the answer has to be General Wesley Clark...>>