Clark is the 'perfect anti-Bush'
azcentral.com
Candidate understands importance of alliances
By Judy Nichols
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 7, 2004 12:00 AM
In a horse race like the one for the Democratic presidential nomination, being first in the early going isn't always best. It only focuses scrutiny on every misstep or gaffe.
So, retired Gen. Wesley Clark has been in the best spot: trailing, but not too far, ready to step in as the composed, credible leader when front-runner Howard Dean self-destructs, as some predict the former Vermont governor will do.
In fact, Clark may have caught up. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll released Tuesday shows him in a statistical dead heat with Dean. And Arizona could be his proving ground.
"I'm very encouraged by my reception in Arizona," Clark said.
Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, the campaign's state chairman, is thrilled, saying, "Our candidate is situated perfectly."
And Clark has the money to stay in the race, raising $10 million to $12 million in the fourth quarter, for a total of almost $15 million, second only to Dean.
Clark, 59, the Southerner and soldier/scholar, helped negotiate the Dayton Peace Accords on Bosnia in 1995 and led NATO troops to victory over Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo in 1999.
He was most visible recently as the CNN commentator on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Clark got into the primary late, after an Internet-based Draft Clark movement.
He is skipping the Iowa caucuses Jan. 19, hoping to come in among the top three in New Hampshire primary on Jan. 27 and win the Arizona on Feb. 3. Six other states also hold primaries or caucuses that day.
Clark served in the Army from 1966 to 2000 and was wounded in Vietnam while patrolling in the jungle. He received the Purple Heart and Silver Star.
But he has been called the "anti-war general" because he opposed the war in Iraq, calling it "elective." He says President Bush launched the war under false pretenses.
Clark attended West Point, where he graduated first in his class. He went to Oxford University in England on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics.
He has challenged Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy as unfair, and this week revealed his proposal for a simplified income tax system that would lessen taxes for working families and eliminate most of the complex tax laws and forms.
About 40 people showed up at an Internet-organized "meet-up" of Clark supporters Monday night at a Phoenix Coffee Plantation.
Cindy Rasmussen, assistant director in the advisory center for ASU West, said she stopped by because she likes Clark's plans for higher education, which would make the first two years of college free for most students.
"If you can make it through the first two years, you're going to make it and be a productive member of society," said Rasmussen, who was inspired enough to call friends and colleagues to urge them to vote for Clark.
For Clark, life's defining moment came early, at age 4, when his father died and his mother took him from Chicago to her native Oklahoma.
"I didn't have a father, I didn't have a big brother," Clark said. "I realized I had to make things work. I had to take responsibility. And so I have a lot of sympathy for people who don't have things handed to them in life, who have to make it on their own."
His mother, who eventually remarried, raised Clark as a Baptist, hiding his Jewish heritage from him until after he was married. When he married, he converted to Catholicism.
Responsibility and empathy drove Clark to his finest victory, overpowering Milosevic, and to his worst defeat, being fired a month later.
"Technically it wasn't a firing," Clark said, although that's how he has described it. "They asked me to retire three months early and made it clear I wasn't welcome to stay."
For Clark, the issue was one of personal integrity.
"I insisted that the United States pay attention to the problems emerging in the Balkans. People at the Pentagon disagreed and I went over their heads to the State Department and the White House, and they agreed with me. I was not insubordinate, but I did stand up for what is right."
Cris Hernandez, a native of Casa Grande, who was part of Clark's security detail in Kosovo, said the man is personable and emotional, not cold or egotistical.
"We all loved him," Hernandez said.
For those who knock Clark for his lack of political experience, he counters that his work with NATO was political work at the highest level.
"It was working with government leaders in many countries and with the U.S. Congress and their staffs. I was intensively engaged in that for years," he said.
"The only thing I don't have experience with is being elected," he said, adding that he loves the campaign trail.
Johnson called Clark the perfect "anti-Bush."
"One thing that unites Democrats is that they are appalled by Bush," he said. "He's an individual foreign-policy cowboy who thinks he can do it alone and that NATO and the United Nations are evil. The reverse, Dean, is a guy who believes we don't have a role to play and who has very little foreign-policy experience.
"Clark understands we have a role to play internationally. . . . And he knows the importance of not going it alone." |
