To: epicure who wrote (5881 ) 1/19/2004 5:30:15 AM From: Dale Baker Read Replies (2) | Respond to Joe Klein at Time on connecting to southern voters:This sort of aerobic empathy has been standard, if subtle, political tradecraft ever since Bill Clinton—but the general has assimilated the playbook at warp speed. Clark's new stump speech has a quality not often found in political oratory: it is charming. He is able, somehow, to shed his brass and re-create his lonely, impoverished childhood in Arkansas: his patriotic attempt to master chemistry and build a backyard rocket after the Russians launched Sputnik; his decision, at age 5, to attend the Baptist church in Little Rock because the stained-glass windows reminded him of the Methodist church he'd attended in Chicago before his father died; his struggle to raise a family on a military salary; the car he totally rebuilt because he couldn't afford a new one. There is a careful structure to the speech. The anecdotes connect to four core values—patriotism, faith, family and inclusiveness—that Clark then turns against the Republicans. After the Baptist-church story, for example, he talks about the Republican Party's misuse of religion: "They act like they have a direct pipeline to the Lord God Almighty ... but every religion I've ever studied agrees that people who have advantages in life have an obligation to help those who don't have advantages." The emotional heart of the speech, though, is Clark's dismay over the Bush Administration's misuse of "the precious lives of our men and women in uniform" in Iraq—and that is where he will often run into problems. At times, his passion spills over into an almost Deanian imprudence. At a Texas fund raiser last week, Clark thundered, "We're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest Administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame. They are a threat to what this nation stands for."
