Clark Drafters Seek a Spot in His Campaign
By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2003; 12:00 AM
The thing about wild-eyed idealism is that it doesn't pay the bills.
When it came time to turn the movement to draft retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark to run for president into a nuts-and-bolts campaign, the usual dramas surfaced over power and money -- but because of the campaign's unusual genesis, the struggle for control of the campaign has some curious twists.
This sort of thing is not unique to the Clark campaign. Al Gore's campaign three years ago was riven with infighting and power plays. This year, Sen. John Kerry's camp has had its share of internal dramas. But the dynamics of the Clark campaign have been particularly difficult, in part because of the unique way it formed as an outgrowth of Internet activists interested in recruiting the person they saw as the best leader for the nation. The fact that Clark got in so late only raised the stakes to get it right from the start.
"This campaign is truly unique for a variety of reasons," Clark campaign communications director Matt Bennett said on Tuesday. "We're trying to start this up from a standing stop, eight months after everyone else. And on top of that, this is the first time anyone has tried to meld a national campaign onto an existing and very vibrant grass-roots organizing campaign that had sprung up without any help or input from the candidate."
This Is Where It Gets Tricky
When Clark announced his intention to run a few weeks ago, he cited the encouragement he received from the online draft movement as one of the factors that helped him make his decision.
The movement of bloggers and online activists was led by two groups, DraftClark04.com, based in Little Rock, Ark., which promised to have volunteers in place and ready to work for Clark in every state, and DraftWesleyClark.com, based in Washington, D.C., which generated nearly $2 million in pledges by early September.
But after Clark announced, the Internet activists had trouble melding with each other or with the professional campaign people, many of whom were veterans of the Clinton and Gore presidential campaigns. Initially, some of the Internet folks said they felt as though they were being shunted aside by people who understood the value of their product but not their value as human capital.
The leaders of DraftWesleyClark.com, John Hlinko and Josh Margulies, had said before Clark entered the race, that they would only take a salary if anything were left over after paying for expenses. (See my September 3 column.) This week, they said they were asking the Clark campaign for reimbursement for their work, and they acknowledged that the amount of their request -- which they would not reveal -- had generated a fair amount of dissension in the campaign.
But, the two men pointed out, Federal Election Commission rules prohibit organizations from turning over e-mail lists to campaigns for free, so they couldn't have given away their product even if they had wanted to. They said their lawyers were in negotiations with the campaign over "fair market value" for the e-mail list.
Problems such as these aside, the campaign was happy to report Wednesday that DraftWesleyClark.com had come through, converting about half of the $1.9 million in pledges into actual dollar contributions in the third quarter. In addition, Margulies, who has been hired by the campaign as a deputy spokesman, predicted that about 70 percent of the total $3.5 million raised by the campaign in the previous quarter came from Internet contributions.
"Yes, there were some real problems in the beginning," Margulies said. "But that's all yesterday. We're all really plugged in and integrated with the campaign in general. For all that to happen in less than a month is astonishing. I've seen a lot of campaigns where the egos last for 14 months, and that's not happening here."
No Unanimous Consent on That Issue
Not all of the Internet activists who worked on the draft Clark movement are so happy.
Stirling Newberry, a Lowell, Mass., activist who helped start or run a number of pro-Clark Web sites, including DraftClark.com, has been the most vocal. In a blunt (his critics say bitter) "Open Letter to the Clark Movement", Newberry predicted that the dual failures of the Internet-based movement and the professional campaign leadership will lead to the candidate's political demise.
"Many people intimately connected with the draft movement failed Clark. They failed him by inflating their accomplishments, and working to fragment the movement, so that they could get jobs in the campaign. Unfortunately, this has proven, as it always was, to be a mistake. The flaw was this: by lying about their accomplishments, it undercut the very credibility of the people who were fighting for the Draft Movement. As a result the insiders prevailed, and now the Draft movement is on the outside looking in -- with its most vocal supporter resigning from the campaign, and the positions of others left in doubt -- and its most eloquent spokespeople cut out of the process entirely."
Donnie Fowler left his job as Clark's campaign manager last week, saying Clark was more focused on wooing Washington insiders than the grass-roots activists who made his candidacy possible in the first place. (See Post story.)
Fowler, Newberry said, was the only person who could harness the energy and activism of the grass-roots and meld them into the professional campaign operation. The evidence of the campaign's inability to do that, he said, can be seen by the lagging effort to put together professional operations in key states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
Some of those inside the campaign, from both the volunteer Internet side and the professional side, characterized Newberry as a professional complainer. While they acknowledged a tough start, they said the two sides were coming together to form a strong organization. For example, Hlinko has been hired to run Internet strategy. He answers directly to the campaign chairman Eli Segal rather than to the communications director.
"I like Stirling, and I think he's a smart guy," Hlinko said. "But in this case, I just think he's wrong. He hasn't really been here. I look around the office and I see draft people all around me. Things are a lot better than he perceives it. The people who are seeing it close up are not echoing that sentiment. Not to disparage the guy, but he's just a little over the top." |
