Posted on 11/22/2003 6:44:50 PM PST by Pikamax
Democrats' general on the retreat
War hero's campaign falters as key staff drift away
Paul Harris in New York Sunday November 23, 2003 The Observer
When General Wesley Clark entered the race for the US presidency he was hailed as an all-conquering saviour who could provide the magic ingredients to defeat George Bush and capture the White House for the Democrats. Not any more. As President George W. Bush arrives home from his state visit to Britain, he will have the satisfaction of seeing Clark's campaign in crisis. It is low on funds, has lost key staff and is fizzling out in key battleground states.
Meanwhile, the campaign of Vermont governor Howard Dean has captured the public imagination, securing his place as the frontrunner in the still crowded field of nine Democrat candidates.
'There was tremendous potential in Clark as a candidate, but there have been major problems in the execution,' said John Zogby, head of polling organisation Zogby International which conducted research for Clark supporters before the general's announcement that he was joining the race.
Clark looked great on paper. As a retired four-star general - complete with war wounds from Vietnam - he was seen as invulnerable on the Democrats' traditional weakness, national security. He was also anti-war, having appeared on TV as a pundit critical of the invasion of Iraq. And he was seen as the sort of outsider who could galvanise a Democrat race full of figures little known outside the corridors of power in Washington. It has not turned out that way, however.
Clark's late entry left him months and, in some cases, years behind the other candidates. In the marathon contest that is a US presidential election, that was a crippling handicap. In terms of getting local campaign offices open and recruiting effective local workers Clark's team was lagging or found that all the best organisers had already been snapped up.
That has seen Clark pull out of the first state to vote: Iowa. 'You need months on the ground to even have a hope in Iowa. Clark just did not have that,' said Professor Richard Stoll, a political scientist at Rice University, Texas.
Within three weeks of announcing his bid, Clark's campaign manager Donnie Fowler had quit. Aides put the resignation down to 'growing pains' in the campaign, but the troubles quickly got worse. Clark has come across poorly in some of the TV debates.
His positions on many domestic issues have not filtered clearly through the media, and his campaign has been marred by serious gaffes. Comments made in May 2001 surfaced, showing Clark heaping praise on Bush and his team: 'I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our President George W Bush. We need them there,' he told an Arkansas Republican dinner.
That caused dismay among many supporters. 'People know that if Clark wins the Democrat nomination, those quotes are just a Republican attack ad waiting to happen,' Zogby said.
Clark's campaign has focused on winning the crucial New Hampshire primary, which has long been seen as the state which can make or break a presidential run. Dean's campaign, however, has carved out double-figure leads over its rivals in the state, and Clark is now not even in second place there. After an initial surge when he announced his candidacy, Clark has fallen into single figures in the latest polls.
Now his staff are rebranding the general as an underdog candidate. 'It is the way for us to go. We are the team coming from behind to take this,' said one aide. Such talk is a far cry from the optimism that many Clark workers showed when their man first went public.
'It not over for Clark yet: it is still early. But it just goes to show that electoral campaigning is a very different world from the military one he is used to,' Stoll said.
Analysts believe the general's fate will be decided in South Carolina, the southern state which votes first in the wake of New Hampshire. If he does not win there, his campaign could be as good as dead by February. Though Clark leads some polls in this state, he faces a strong challenge from Senator John Edwards, who is from North Carolina.
Clark's troubles are in sharp contrast to the performance of Dean, who has built up a fanatical following from his consistent criticism of the war in Iraq. If Dean notches up quick victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, he could coast to the nomination.
Dean has collected a huge pile of campaign cash from tens of thousands of people, much of it over the internet. Like Bush, Dean has pulled out of government-funded campaign finance, freeing him to raise as much as he can from private sources.
'Winning campaigns quickly suck up all the oxygen. That will give him the the three Ms: media, money and momentum,' said Zogby.
Dean will need the money. While he hopes to match the record electoral war chest of $100 million that Bush raised in 2000, the President's latest campaign has already surpassed that and is now on its way to raising perhaps a quarter of a billion dollars.
Whoever wins, next year's election will be the most expensive in history.
Seriously, this over use of the word 'hero' has really gotten ridiculous. IMHO.
He's still got lots of potential. Hopefully he'll hold down Edwards in the South :)
Bill and Hillary have been going through the Rolodex and pulling out good names for shake down potential, getting the big money donors to pony up for Clark. The Guardian obviously forgot to take the "Clinton factor" into account while writing Clark's obituary.
I still don't think it will help him much - Clark comes across as flat-out weird, and mentally unstable to boot. But hopefully you're right and Clark will, if nothing else, be able to bloody up some of the other dwarves before he finally crashes.
Gen. Confusion???
That caused dismay among many supporters. 'People know that if Clark wins the Democrat nomination, those quotes are just a Republican attack ad waiting to happen,' Zogby said.
ROFL!
But I continue to think Wesley Clark isn't really running for president...I think he's practicing for his real mission. To be Hillary's 2008 VP
I hear you. But should it be someone's only source for articles to post at Free Repuhlic?
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