General election: insiders say it's too late for Wesley Clark to win the primaries. They're wrong

Washington Monthly, Sept, 2003 by Amy Sullivan

The script for the 2004 Democratic primary has not worked out as written. By this time, with nine candidates in the running--representing various wings of the party and several regions of the country one or two were supposed to have caught fire. But so far, after a half-dozen cattle calls, a full round of "Meet the Press" appearances, and an untold number of pancake breakfasts, there is no real frontrunner. The early favorites, like Joe Lieberman and John Edwards, are struggling. John Kerry has raised money, but not hopes or excitement. The one guy who has surged ahead, Howard Dean, is widely seen as, in Texas-speak, snakebit. He was adamantly against the war in Iraq, which 62 percent of the country still supports, and while he is no dove--he says he supported every post-Vietnam U.S. intervention through Kosovo--he lacks national security experience. Leading Democrats are increasingly worried that he just can't beat Bush next year. And so are voters.

Instead of coalescing around one or two strong possibilities, likely voters are withdrawing their support. Today, there are actually more undecided Democrats than there were just a few months ago. The number stood at 15 percent in May and 30 percent in early July. In a late July Zogby poll, almost half of those Democrats polled--48 percent--said they wish they had other candidates to choose from.

Democrats want somebody else to run. And that somebody could be Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and current undeclared candidate for the Democratic nomination, who has assured supporters that he will announce his intentions sometime this month.

Clark's appeal is obvious. Although he has yet to declare a party affiliation, his stance on key domestic issues--he's pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, and pro-progressive taxation--clearly mark him as a Democrat. And while other Democratic contenders either took strong positions last fall against the war in Iraq or declared themselves convinced by the administration's "evidence" that the threat was imminent and action was needed, Clark put forth an alternative strategy for how to deal with terrorism generally and Iraq specifically, based on using military alliances such as NATO, the model he ande work in Kosovo. (See "An Army of One?" by Wesley Clark, September 2002). Prior to the Iraq invasion, he argued that military action would require international support to he sustainable, that fighting would continue after major military victories, and that while the case for war "could have been made," the "element of urgency was always missing." Although criticized shortly after the war began for these statements, Clark's positions have been borne out, while both Democratic candidates and the president have struggled to defend their earlier stances.

Though he's never held elected office, recent speeches have hinted at bow Clark might employ his military experience as evidence of his capacity for domestic political leadership. Running large military enterprises, he likes to point out, requires providing services to tens of thousands of servicemen and women who, in the all-volunteer era, are free to quit. "We fought for better schools for the children of the men and women who served in Europe. We fought for better housing ... for time off so people could be with their families ... for better healthcare and health insurance," said Clark in a recent speech to the New Democrat Network in Washington, D.C., sounding very much like a former governor. Clark also seems to have a preternatural ability to phrase his positions in a way that sounds authentic while allowing him to navigate the most treacherous political minefields. When asked about gun control, for instance, Clark said, "I have got 20-some-odd guns in the house. I like to hunt. I have grown up with guns all my life. But people who like assault weapons, they should join the United States Army--we have them."

Arguably, Clark matches each of the strengths of the current crop of contenders, and then raises them one. His Army background--stretching from Vietnam to Kosovo--out-oomphs Kerry's military record. His service as commander of NATO forces compares favorably to Dean's executive experience as governor of a small New England state. He adds gravitas to Edwards's aesthetic appeal, charisma to Lieberman's thoughtfulness, and sincerity to Gephardt's liberal policies.

That's why more and more Democratic insiders are beginning to argue that--at least in theory--Clark is the best candidate to beat Bush in a general election. The problem, they say, is that it's too late for Clark to make a primary run. Campaigns and Elections 101 teaches that it takes time to acquire name recognition, to build a field organization, to raise the funds to be competitive, to gain endorsements, and to acquire the myriad of intangible skills that it takes to run a winning campaign.

But this time, the conventional wisdom may be wrong.

Getting To Know the General

One of the first rules of campaigning is to establish name recognition. Candidates don't pass out buttons and bumper stickers just for kicks, but because people don't vote for someone they've never heard of. Sure, Wes Clark was once Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, just like Dwight Eisenhower. But Ike won World War II and became a national hero. Clark won Kosovo, a small conflict that hardly captured America's attention. Nor, in terms of profile, does he compare to that other general in national life, Colin Powell. Indeed, in national polls, Clark has lower name recognition than the least-known candidate in the Democratic field, Dennis Kucinich.