The Lambs Have Begun To Roar
nynewsday.com
By Ellis Henican
Columnist
NewsDay
September 26, 2003
Until the past couple of weeks, it was perfectly safe to ignore the Democrats running for president.
Who cared which one of these self-delusionals got the nomination? Honestly, what was it worth?
The chance to be clobbered by a Republican president who had hijacked the 2000 election, messed up the economy and retaliated for 9/11 by going to war against the one Arab despot who had nothing to do with the terror attacks?
Month after month after month, George W. Bush flew in the thin air above it all. The pollsters said his public-approval rating was as high as gentle sunshine's and Jesus Christ's.
It really wasn't president these Democratic candidates were campaigning for. It was sacrificial lamb.
But suddenly, the lambs have begun to roar. People — lots of people — are noticing that things aren't going too well in the Bush economy and in the expensive Bush war. Three million jobs lost already! Another $87 billion for Iraq! The great invincible incumbent is looking downright beatable now. If his sky-high poll numbers keep falling the way they have been, they could be as low as Uday and Qusay's pretty soon — or even Mike Bloomberg's.
Which is why, on a lovely September afternoon, I had no choice but to be standing in the shade of Bowling Green Park in lower Manhattan with a couple hundred office workers and college kids, awaiting the arrival of a Rhodes scholar, West Point grad and four-star general from Little Rock, Ark. Wesley Clark, who wasn't even in the race 10 days ago, is all of a sudden the plausible presenter of an eviction notice at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. — one of several, actually — ready to ship the Bush family furniture back home to Crawford, Tex.
I'd forgotten how much I love campaigns.
Especially campaigns this early on.
There were funny, hand-lettered signs: "Feminist Army Brat for Clark."
There were mock-military marching chants:
"I don't know but I been told/
Wesley Clark's as good as gold!"
Jamie Hodari took the train down with a couple dozen of his Columbia University classmates. People on campus, he said, really are excited about Wes Clark.
"First of all, he has a sterling background, the kind of president we could all be proud of," said Jamie, who comes from Michigan.
Back when I was in school, I told him, it would have been hard to get my friends too excited about an Army general who wanted to be president. Have things on campus changed that much?
"The fact that he's an anti-war general, that makes a big difference," Jamie said. "We understand public service, our generation does. We have people joining the Peace Corps, people joining Teach for America. Wesley Clark stands for all that."
When Clark arrived, Jamie and his friends roared with an enthusiasm I hadn't heard for a while, except at a Howard Dean rally two or three weeks ago. Dean was on the front of this Democratic revival. But he doesn't own it by himself anymore.
Clark was in the city, along with the other nine Democratic candidates, for a 4 p.m. debate at Pace University and then a 7 p.m. Democratic National Committee dinner at the Sheraton. The debate would be the first time Clark got to go at it with his Democratic opponents.
He didn't get to the park until after 2:30. So he didn't stay long. He didn't give a formal speech.
Clark is trim and not especially imposing.
But as he worked the rope line, shaking hands and saying hello, his wife, Gert, was at his side, shaking hands and smiling just as vigorously as her husband was. And he was looking like a whole lot more than a telegenic ex-general trying to glom publicity or to make a point. He looked like a man who, deep in his heart, was thinking, "You know, stranger things have happened. I really could be the next president."
"This is a great city," he said on his way to the car, which would take the newest Democratic hopeful and his wife the few blocks up to Pace. "I used to date my wife here. She used to work about two blocks from here on Broadway. She used to work at LF Rothschild. So we used to come to this park a lot as kids."
The general was back, but it wasn't for love this time, and it sure wasn't to play in the park.
It was all business on the campaign trail yesterday, the long and gritty business of picking a president.
And all of a sudden, no one knows how it will end.
Email: henican@newsday.com
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