With 'True Grits,' Clark woos South
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By MONI BASU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
12/30/03
BIRMINGHAM -- No grits are served at this stop, although Wesley Clark started his "True Grits Tour" earlier Monday with a bowl of the stuff in Arkansas.
Making his way by late afternoon to Birmingham -- the third stop on this swing through the South -- Clark toured 16th Street Baptist Church, a landmark of the civil rights movement, and pronounced himself the only candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination who can make the region winnable again for his party.
"I am a son of the South," Clark said after touring the church, whose bombing 40 years ago served as the nadir of the civil rights movement in Alabama.
Later at an airport hangar, he addressed supporters, including a handful of Georgians. One of them, Jane McCoy of LaGrange, who drove to Birmingham with her husband and son to see the candidate, said, "It's all about reading the people. He's not a politician initially."
Clark's campaign hopes to build momentum ahead of the presidential primaries with this two-day tour through the South. Wednesday will mark the end of his first full quarter of fund-raising, which is seen as a critical test of his viability as a candidate who can face up to front-runner Howard Dean of Vermont.
While other major candidates closed out 2003 up north, Clark chose to make his mark down south, touting his appeal in a region that voted overwhelmingly for President Bush in 2000. Clark says he is banking on regional appeal as a Southern boy with a distinguished military career who lived through the painful era of segregation.
That makes him an attractive candidate for Southerners who feel that Dean is out of touch with their way of life, said Scott Anderson, Clark's campaign director in South Carolina. The last three Democratic presidents -- Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson -- were all Southerners, Anderson pointed out.
Another Democratic candidate this year, Sen. John Edwards, is from North Carolina, but Clark's communication director, Matt Bennett, said Clark is better experienced to go "toe to toe" with Bush.
"The Democrats need to understand that if the person at the top of the ticket cannot win the South, that raises big problems," Bennett said. "Al Gore did poorly in the South because he lost touch with Southern values, Southern voters. Wes Clark has not."
So, with the mush of grits and the macho of John Wayne, Clark took to the streets of six Southern cities Monday, starting in his hometown of Little Rock, where he downed a symbolic but hearty breakfast of the traditional Southern cheese grits.
"What it all comes down to is that I am who I am because of what I learned right here in the South," Clark said in Little Rock.
That kind of talk appeals to Leland Rainer, 62, of Andalusia, Ala. The lifelong Alabamian said Clark's military record and fiscal conservatism are what Southerners are looking for in a leader.
Today, Clark is set to visit Nashville; Garden City outside Savannah; and Mount Pleasant, S.C. He plans to spend extra time in South Carolina, revving up for the Feb. 3 primary there.
"The bottom line is that the Southern states are where Clark can make his strongest showing," said Janine Parry, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. "He's a Democrat who is not easily painted with some of the epithets that the South uses on Democrats."
Other candidates, such as Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt, are counting on strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Clark's closest campaign aides acknowledge privately that he has thrown in the towel in Iowa. In New Hampshire, he trails Dean and Kerry in the polls, but on Monday the Clark campaign began airing a new 30-second TV ad showing President Clinton placing the Presidential Medal of Freedom over the retired general's head for his work as NATO commander.
Clark's "True Grits" tour began with the launching of the ad in Little Rock.
But Alabama Democratic pollster John Anzalone isn't sure Clark has made the wisest campaign decision by focusing on a region that matters more in the general election than in the primaries. Invoking Southern roots has its charm, Anzalone said, but "you still have to compete beyond the South to make it all happen."
But Parry, the political scientist, said Clark could win by coming in second or third in Iowa and New Hampshire and showing muscle in the South.
"His investing in the Southern tour -- even if it causes him to slip a bit in races up North -- is probably a gamble worth taking," Parry said.
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