The Players
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October 08, 2003
Many people don't know what is going on inside the Clark campaign, and there is a great deal of noise from people who are in the dark about it, and there is a great deal of flacking going on. I am going to remind people that, since early August, I have been on record as not seeking a job in the main campaign, and being unwilling to accept one if offered. On two occasions I was asked by insiders if I wanted to have them push for me to be inside - on both occasions I refused.
Let's cut to the chase, and make a first draft at journalism - as journalism is the first draft of history - and follow the details.
The main players here are:
Mark Fabiani - who brought his people, including Kim Spell, and his friend's wife - on board to manage communication. He is a respected man inside the beltway because he runs a great set piece. The Democratic National Convention of 2000 is his work at its best - a tightly scripted informercial which delivers the good in sound bite form. It gave Gore a substantial lead, and it is about the only area of the campaign where the Democratic Party outdid the Republicans. For an incumbent, running this kind of by the numbers, set piece campaign with a sound bite message that plays is enough for re-election.
However, Fabiani is also the person who allowed Albert Gore to be well, Gored. From Gore being seen as an honest but stiff guy - he went to being smirky and smarmy, and then got hammered with "pathological liar". During the Florida election debacle, Fabiani was unable to put across the Gore message effectively. Fabiani does not deal well with life, unscripted.
He's also been the man who has had the ability to get people hired - almost every key early hire was at his behest.
On one hand many of the set piece aspects to Clark's appearances bear the marks of a Fabiani operation running well. On the otherhand, allowing missteps to get out of control "Help Me, Mary" and now Fowler's quitting in anger - and not having a good message to meet that. Telling people "everything is the same, just they guy at the top has changed" is not a message. It's like saying "The war is going great, we just had the Supreme Allied Commander quit saying we didn't know how to run a war."
Donnie Fowler, got his inside track from being the son of legendary Don Fowler - one of the men who, bluntly, brought the Democratic Party into the television age. However, Donnie Fowler is well liked in his own right, and was described, often, as "one of the young, rising, stars of the Democratic party". He was National Field Coordinator for Gore, and did a credible job - but it was his work in the new economy that convinced many people that he could handle the historically unique Draft movement and the problems of campaign organization. It was he who convinced Hlinko not to walk. It was he who brought back many DraftWesleyClark.com people - Chai and Maya for example. It was he who convinced many Clark skeptical reporters to "give them a chance". Fowler's impressive feats of diplomacy and organization bailed the Clark campaign out of a tight spot. It was Fowler who "got" the new politics - and he, personally, put his neck out for Wesley Clark. His departure in anger - and clearly being given the boot by the campaign with their platitudinous "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" smiles about what a great job he has done - is not a good sign, and is not being taken as one by objective Democratic observers.
Eli Segal was the Chief Executive for Clinton's 1996 campaign, and chief of staff in 1992. He is respected in environmentalist circles, and is considered a strong manager. The reports are, so far, that it was he who decided, in the end that Fowler had to go, and he had concurrence in this from Fabiani. He is in Little Rock and wants to organize the campaign along different lines, though he is not unware of the importance of activism - he is old media politics. He also comes with another problem attached - the ability of the right wing media to "Clintonize" this situation. Taking small scandal points, adding it to Fowler's departure and darkly saying "see, it is Wesley Kanne Clinton, Hillary's stalking horse." Never mind that Segal is a Friend of Bill, these things don't have to add up to the right wing - merely pile up. As the campaign chairman he wields enormous clout - and it is impossible to imagine he did not approve Fowler's resignation, it forms the base of a pile.
Dick Sklar and Wesley Clark became friends in Bosnia. Clinton appointed him to run the civilian side of the Bosnian reconstruction, and by any measure, he exceeded all expectations. With long experience in construction, he is known as "a detail guy" with a tremendous grasp of facts and schedules and the ability to deliver. However, he was also the energy Czar in California during the power crisis - where he failed to realize what the underlying problem was, and, in some measure, contributed to the spiraling out of control of the political situation there. With a long and distinguished career in public service - capped by being a special Ambassador to the UN - he is the perfect man for Clark to appoint as his man to "get a handle on things" and get things structured. He's been mentioned in that role by two people who have been following the campaign - though, of course, that is speculation.
Mickey Kantor - former trade representative for Clinton - has been a policy advisor to Wesley Clark for some time according to sources - he has been influential in linking foreign relations to trade in the Clark program, and the policy work that is being done bears marks of his design.
Ron Klain is the man who Fabiani nominated for chief of staff, and it is he who worked out the economic plan which was released earlier. It is typical Klain work - he was Chief of Staff for Gore - solid, plays well inside the beltway and in publications such as Business Week - without promising either too much or too little. Klain has been pushing, according to two inside sources, to move the campaign from Little Rock to Washington DC, though no one was willing to state how serious this was, or how hard he was doing so.
John Hlinko, founder of DraftWesleyClark.com, was just appointed internet strategy. He was retained by Donnie Fowler, and his team kept on board directly by Fowler. If they leave it will be the sign of a sweep of the inside by old politics, and will be taken as such. Voluble and tireless - Hlinko was the man who drove traffic into the Draft, and found, created or devised, a stream of stories to keep the Draft movement covered. In no small part the sense of expectation about Clark was because Hlinko's team made the case that there was a body of support out there for Clark waiting to happen, wanting him to "announce now".
Mark Nichols - long time Clark stalwart, who worked for Wesley Kanne Clark and Associates, and acted as the chinese wall between the Draft Clark movement and Clark the unCandidate. A difficult job at best, he is a trusted advisor, and it soon got out that he was the man that people who wanted specific rolls in the campaign needed to talk to. Willing to listen - but often gruff from being short on time - Mark Nichols was one of the men who acted as a buffer between Clark and the turmoil outside. It was, and is, one of the most thankless tasks in politics, but also a vital one that he performed with distinction.
Not all of his decisions were as well researched as they should have been - but he was working with a staff of two to order something that no one had ever seen before. It is in this light, however, that his failure to contact certain key people early must be seen as just that: a small, but crucial failure which has generated some of the problems since then.
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So what is the upshot of all of this? Can Clark just ride the wave of good appearances? Not if he is being hounded by an FEC investigation, questions about who was in and who was out, stories of brutal infighting and leaving behind a cloud of flackery which will convince reporters they aren't getting the full story. The man who raised a large chunk of the gaudy 3rd quarter total was hired by Fowler, the individual who was rumored to be in line to go to New Hampshire to take things in hand there was picked by Donnie Fowler. It was Fowler who spoke directly to Draft field coordinators, assuaged their fears, and got them to stay on board the difficult process of integration. Now, all of these people are up in the air - will they be kept? Or will they, like Fowler, be told to accept ignominious demotion or leave?
Fowler didn't just resign - he quit in disgust. This is a sign that, once again, the message people have not been doing their work. There are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and this, again, was the wrong way. For a candidate who is running on having allies, an awful lot of Clark allies seem to leave in disgust, or decide they don't even want to be considered for the campaign - for example John Weaver. A number of other allies don't seem to get called.
Fowler's anger with the problems reached a boiling over point during one conference call when field coordinators said they wanted orders from Little Rock. Mr. Fowler is reported to have said "Fuck Little Rock, just keep doing what you are doing."
Reports from high ranking insiders over the last week, and one well known reporter who has followed both the Dean and Clark campaigns, were that there were serious problems in the campaign. One long time Democratic speech writer, retained as a part time advisor to the campaign, stated this bluntly not long ago. These problems were "out there" in the press, but there was no spark that said that they rose above the normal arguments and problems in a fledgling campaign - especially one working under the brightest of bright lights.
The overt signs of trouble were a large crowd of small details which were wrong. Some were the kinds that warm only a techno-geeks heart: links being taken off of the campaign's main page. Others bothered reporters: phones not being answered. Some were only visible to insiders who knew all of the details: excessive claims made by Draft Clark 2004.com, people being censored by campaign agents. Others remain off the record but very troubling: conduits to the campaign telling Draft Clark people not to campaign for fellow Democrats in New Hampshire. But even the most serious: a campaign agent asking a weblogger to put out talking points which "came from the campaign" but to say they came from the movement, which is a clear violation of 2 USC 441d, and the mentioning of campaigning at DePauw University - which is a technical violation of FEC rules on donations - did not amount to a story, there was "no there there", nothing that could not be disowned, or fixed by simply cutting a check. Even though many reporters knew that one individual with excessively close ties to the Clark family had engaged in questionable activities, it was inconsequential, too small to notice.
Now a respected insider is out because of these problems. They have had a consequence.
These small things added up to a problem. What the problem is, and what will be written about it is going to be determined by how the campaign faces the current moment. If the campaign tries to brazen it out, many of the above details will be put into the public record - including harassing emails from unpaid agents of the campaign sent to people in the draft movement. If the campaign tries to deny the problems, it is, like Gary Hart's infamous challenge, going to be an invitation to turn every small problem into a story. It is brazening out small missteps which turns them into lies, and lies, as we all know, are the real story.
If this were the Bush campaign, then Clark could plead being out of touch: but Clark is famous as a micro manager, a man who takes every detail in hand. It becomes impossible to believe that he did not make the decisions that lead to this. Hence, he must be seen as taking responsibility, taking ownership, and taking leadership. It is what Clark has always done - particularly in the three worst moments of Kosovo - the Chinese Embassy bombing, the bombing of trucks with civilians, and the Pristina airfield. Each time, he kept things moving.
There is one thing that can be done, and must be done: the big man needs to get to the microphone, say that "This has never been done in the history of America, a draft movement not run by insiders. Washington had Alexander Hamilton, Eisenhower had Senator Henry Cabot Lodge - there was the first time a draft wasn't a campaign looking for a candidate. We need to get a handle on this, it is unfortunate that tensions have reached this point, I'm sorry that Donnie is angry about the differences inside the campaign, I've appointed [ ] to deal with getting things in hand and making sure we retain the right people." The man I would nominate is Dick Sklar. Then he has to do it.
He also needs to bring on board - or bring to higher profile - several very pro-Clark individuals associated with the previous Democratic campaigns - dating back to JFK in one instance. There are three in particular whose being brought to the front now would go a very long way to dispel the impression that this is "a Gore operation with some Clintonistas thrown in".
Otherwise, the truth will be that this is a cozy little inside operation, and that Wes Clark's success is success for a small group of people who ran Gore's campaign into the ground. And if you want to watch the energy level drop, that will do it.
This is a defining moment for Clark and his campaign. It can be proof, to the press and the world, that Clark makes problems go away. Or it can be proof to the press, and the world, that Clark is drunk on high poll numbers and big donations - and doesn't give a damn about the little people that are getting crushed under.
Which story the journalists write, is up to one man at this point, the man we've placed our faith in: Wesley Kanne Clark.
Posted by newberry at October 8, 2003 03:20 PM | TrackBack
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