Supporters urge retired general to jump into race
for Democratic nomination
msnbc.com
By Tom Curry
MSNBC
Aug. 14
Supporters of former NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark will begin broadcasting a television ad next week in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa and New Hampshire urging the retired general to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
THE 60-SECOND AD, WHICH was produced by DraftWesleyClark.com and which will air in Iowa and New Hampshire media markets and in Clark’s hometown of Little Rock, Ark., extols Clark’s 34 years of service as an Army officer.
It calls on him to again answer the call of duty to the nation he served in uniform.
Clark now heads a strategic consulting firm and is writing a book on national defense and terrorism. A Clark aide had no immediate comment on the TV ad or on his deadline for making a decision on the presidential race.
The leaders of DraftWesleyClark.com said they have not coordinated or even discussed their effort with him.
Over the past few months, Clark has made frequent appearances on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the “Today” show and other television programs — all of which have helped keep alive the notion that he might enter the race.
Clark will continue gaining TV exposure Sunday when he is scheduled to be interviewed on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and on the CBS program Face the Nation.
‘SERIOUS CONSIDERATION’
DraftWesleyClark.com aired radio advertisements in New Hampshire in June urging the retired general to join the race.
Clark called the radio ads “amazing.” He also said of the draft movement, “I’m enormously impressed by their energy.... I’m going to have to give some serious consideration to this.”
John Hlinko, co-founder of DraftWesleyClark.com, said that the volunteer group had in effect already jump-started a Clark campaign with a list of tens of thousands of supporters across the nation and nearly $500,000 in pledged contributions if he enters the race.
Josh Margulies, another co-founder of the group, argued that Clark would appeal to Democrats, Republicans and independents. Margulies, himself a Republican, said Republicans who support President Bush might ask themselves, “If he loses, who would be my second choice?”
In a theoretical Clark-Bush contest in November 2004, “at least you would have the choice of two good candidates. The question is not ‘do you want a wartime president,’ but, ‘among the Democrats, who is the best fit as a wartime president?’”
Clark supporters argue that the current field of nine Democratic contenders has a lackluster, somewhat shopworn feel to it.
MILITARY CREDENTIALS
If Clark entered the race, he would immediately cast a shadow on the military credentials of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who in his campaign appearances invariably brings up the fact that he served in Vietnam as a Navy officer and that he is the only one of the nine contenders to have served in uniform.
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Clark, too, served in Vietnam, commanding a mechanized infantry company, and was wounded.
As a combat veteran, career military officer and former NATO commander who matched wits with Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic, Clark would be positioned to deal with one of the Democrats’ glaring problems heading into the 2004 election: the perception among parts of the electorate that the party is weak on national defense.
A poll conducted in late June by Mark Penn, the former pollster for President Clinton, found that when potential voters were asked which party does a better job in handling national defense, the Democratic Party trailed the Republicans by 35 percentage points.
And among male voters, the Democrats’ national security deficit was even larger, 47 percentage points.
“Clearly, to become the majority party, Democrats will have to close the gap on issues of strong leadership,” especially on national security, Penn argued.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
If he became a candidate, Clark would bring strengths to the race:
He is a veteran television performer, having appeared as an expert commentator for CNN before and during the Iraq war. He has a dispassionate, crisp TV demeanor.
He is not a career politician and at least initially could project an above-the-fray persona.
Clark would also have weaknesses:
He has never before run for any elective office and might be prone to “rookie” mistakes.
His positions on such non-military issues as Medicare, Social Security and farm subsidies are not known. He would need intensive preparation to discuss these issues competently.
But the DraftWesleyClark.com activists are convinced he is the man for the moment.
“By attracting and mobilizing large segments of voters who are undecided, a Wesley Clark candidacy could immediately become viable and competitive,” said a recent strategy memo drafted for DraftWesleyClark.com by Chris Kofinis, a Democratic consultant.
The memo acknowledged that raising the millions of dollars needed to pay for a late-starting campaign would be a formidable hurdle.
But it argues that “given the power of the Internet, it is more than possible that Clark, like (Howard) Dean could raise substantial funds to fuel a strong national campaign.”
Clark has criticized the Bush administration for not putting enough U.S. forces in Iraq to establish order in the country.
June 15 — Retired Gen. Wesley Clark says there will not be security in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is found. He said he believes Saddam is alive in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
In a June 15 interview on “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Clark said, “I think there are some mass destruction capabilities that are still inside Iraq. I think there’s some weapons that have been shipped over the border to Syria. But I don’t think we’re going to find that their capabilities provided the imminent threat that many feared in this country. So I think it’s going to be a tough search, but I think there’s stuff there.”
‘PITCH IN AND HELP’
When Russert asked Clark whether he wanted to president, Clark replied, “In many respects, I’d like a chance to help this country. And I don’t know if that means being president or doing something else. But I’ve spent my entire life in public service, except for the last three years. And it’s very hard not to think in terms of the welfare of the country, and when you see the country in trouble, in challenge, yes, you’d like to pitch in and help.”
Clark has also been critical of the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2001 and this year, saying “they were not efficient in terms of stimulating the kind of demand we need to move the economy back into a recovery mode” and that they “weren’t fair.”
Clark explained, “I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation.” |
