Draft Clark movement awaits his decision
post-gazette.com
Sunday, August 24, 2003
By Maeve Reston, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
DOVER, N.H. -- It was back in March when New Hampshire Democrat Susan Putney finally saw the man she believes can beat President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.
She was watching the evening news, frustrated by what she was hearing about Bush's invasion of Iraq. Then she saw Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, appearing as a military analyst on CNN.
She leaned forward in her chair. He was polished, intelligent, articulate and a four star general with a lifetime of service in the Army.
This man, she said to herself, could win the White House.
There was one hitch. Clark wasn't (and still isn't) a candidate for president.
But his potential candidacy has excited voters like Putney, who have launched Draft Clark campaigns that now claim some 30,000 supporters. The excitement has heightened in last few weeks with word from Clark that he is still thinking seriously about a run and may announce his decision as early as this weekend.
In a telephone interview Friday, Clark said he was still planning to announce his decision within the next two weeks. He said he has seen a great desire for change in his travels this summer as the founder and chairman of the non-partisan foundation, Leadership for America.
When asked why he is considering entering the race, Clark said he was most concerned about the Bush administration's foreign policy and the negative international perception of America, as well as the lack of improvement in the economy.
"A lot of people have told me that the current administration frightens them," Clark said. "I've been concerned [about] foreign policy, specifically the excessive focus of war on terror in Iraq. We're in Iraq without a proper strategy for what they're doing there at enormous distraction from the war on terror elsewhere. The position in Afghanistan is crumbling, and Americans are asking, are we safer?"
The general's criticisms of the administration, supporters said, have been sharper in recent weeks and they believe that is because he's talking more like a candidate.
If Clark does run, some political analysts, particularly in New Hampshire, said he may have a difficult time catching up in a field of better-known candidates who have already raised millions of dollars.
That hasn't daunted the organizers of the Draft Clark campaigns, who grumble in their web blogs about those who are skeptical about Clark's ability to enter this late and win.
"People aren't finding the answers they are looking for," said Putney. "If he runs, the money will come, ... and we'll be ready."
Though Clark does not belong to a party, he said Friday that he would not run as an independent and that he hasn't considered entering the Republican primaries because he would "probably have difficulty in the president's party." Many analysts believe that if Clark runs, he will join the Democratic field before the next debate Sept. 4.
Donna Brazile, campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000, said the Democratic Party would welcome Clark's candidacy.
"He comes into a race that is pretty wide open still," she said. "I still believe that there is such a hunger in the party for leadership. ... The water is still warm."
Here in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary on Jan. 27, there is little disagreement that Clark's credentials would add an interesting twist to the race.
Clark, who grew up in Little Rock, Ark., was a top West Point graduate and Rhodes scholar who went on to serve 34 years in the Army and was highly decorated for his service, particularly his combat performance in the Vietnam War. In 1999, he led NATO forces to halt then-Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's persecution of ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
After being forced to retire in 2000 -- because of what he describes in his 2001 memoir as a "succession of frictions" with Pentagon officials -- he returned to the private sector. He has worked as a consultant, eventually starting his own firm, Wesley K. Clark & Associates in Little Rock.
Clark's military background could position him as a strong candidate on defense, the area where current Democratic contenders may be most vulnerable, Dartmouth government professor Linda Fowler said.
"[Democrats] have got a problem," she said. "The public seem to be willing to trade in George Bush, if they could be reassured that the Democrats would do a good job on keeping the country secure. And the problem, of course, is that none of [the candidates] except [Massachusetts Sen. John] Kerry and [Florida Sen.] Bob Graham has much standing on those kinds of issues. And then along comes Wesley Clark, and he has immediate credibility."
But Fowler and other analysts also said Clark would face a difficult road in early-primary states like New Hampshire and in the Iowa caucuses, where name recognition and media momentum often decide the winners.
Clark hasn't been to New Hampshire since May, and in a mid-August poll by the New Hampshire based American Research Group Inc., only 1 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said they would support Clark, compared with 28 percent who said they support the leading candidate in the poll, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
Only 47 percent of the 600 likely Democratic primary voters in the poll said they were even "aware" of Clark, compared with an "awareness" level of 80 to 100 percent for other major candidates, like Dean and Sens. Kerry and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
"He's unknown and way behind in establishing a rapport with voters up here," said political science professor Dante Scala at St. Anselm's College in Manchester. "I don't see the field as a vacuum, waiting to be filled by some candidate who is going to ride in on the horse to the rescue."
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said it could be a struggle even to get Clark's name on the ballot in certain states, where thousands of signatures are required. "I don't think the question is whether he is articulate enough, credible enough or does he have the stature. ... He's General Wesley Clark, of course he does," said Trippi. "The logistics are going to be very tough. It took us seven months to get where we are today."
Political observers also point out that Clark, who has never run for office, has never had to publicly define his positions on a variety of issues, making it difficult to predict how much support he might attract.
Clark has made clear, however, that he is pro-choice and a strong supporter of affirmative action. He was one of a number of former military officers to file a legal brief in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action program in a case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like the other Democratic presidential contenders, Clark has criticized the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration as unfair, short-sighted and ineffective in stimulating the economy. And he has won a number of Democratic supporters with his recent criticism of the Iraq invasion and reconstruction, saying Bush led the nation to war "under false pretenses" and has made America "more vulnerable" to attack.
While New Hampshire Democrats are clearly receptive to Clark's line of thinking, some believe that Clark's military background could actually be a handicap among Democratic voters from the Vietnam generation, who are skeptical of the military.
Robert Hamblett, a 55-year old undecided voter from Gilmanton, raised that concern when asked about Clark at a political rally last week.
"The ex-military scares the living daylights out of me," said Hamblett, a high school biology teacher, who said he wouldn't consider voting for Clark. "I'm sure he's a wonderful decision-maker, but I'm inherently biased against the process by which he makes those decisions."
As skeptics debate Clark's candidacy, the work goes on at Draft Clark offices around the country.
Putney, the volunteer coordinator for New Hampshire, now spends her evenings and weekends calling Democratic activists from the Dover office, encouraging them to hold off from endorsing other candidates.
The Washington, D.C.-based Draft Clark group last week launched a series of glossy television commercials in New Hampshire, Iowa and Arkansas, as well as in the nation's capital, touting Clark's service to his country and urging voters to help bring him into the race.
Between the two groups, Putney said there are coordinators on the ground in all 50 states and some 30,000 volunteers at the ready. There's not much money yet -- one of the groups reported having raised $100,000. The other group is paying for the TV spots as the money comes in.
For now, Clark supporters are just courting voters and activists, and hanging on the general's every word.
Down the street from the Dover Draft Clark 2004 office, Democrat Norman Plante seems like just the kind of voter they are looking for. He's not happy with any of the presidential candidates.
"I'm looking for a leader," said Plante, a retired janitor, "and so far I haven't seen one."
When asked about Clark, Plante's face went blank. "Who?" he asked.
He'd never heard of him. |
