Clark/Hildabeaste in 2004. Write it down.
Posted on 01/02/2004 9:45:27 AM PST by quidnunc
These little mini-controversies keep coming. They’re usually about something the general has said, or said he said, or said he heard. And every little one provides great fodder for the obsessive types that stay glued to Inside Politics, O’Reilly, Hardball … the whole shouting match. It’s happening so regularly now that we’re starting to wonder if real people aren’t taking notice, too.Change 'general' to 'doctor' and this is just as relevant to Howard Dean.
Clark/Hildabeaste in 2004. Write it down.
I did about six months ago, but I wrote it down the other way:
Hillary!/Clark 2004. Bank on it.
In two years he will be as well known as Admiral Stockdale.
EVERYONE remembers "Who am I? What am I doing here?"
When Hillary!/Clark lose to Bush in 2004, the Clinton machine will blame Clark, discard him like everyone else they've used, and you'll never hear from him again.
We'll be joking about Stockdale long after Chelsea runs for President.
What happens to the Clark campaign if/when some GIs find Osama in his cave? What will The Candidate say then — that the real threat was North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il all along? We don’t know much about planning a presidential campaign, but basing it on the survival of the world’s most wanted terrorist doesn’t seem like a good long-term strategy.
Do you suppose Mark Steyn is writing under-cover for the Gazette?! Hehe!
Wm., you are right:
Change 'general' to 'doctor' and this is just as relevant to Howard Dean.
Actually, I didn't remember, but thanks to the miracles of "Google", I have this to share with you all...
http://www.bushcountry.org/news/oct_news_pages/g_100903_jenkins_wesley_clark_admiral_stockade.htm
Too funny! ;)
Our Pres. Bush could have BinLaden if he bombed Afghanistan and every passenger train in it for 78 days straight like Clark did in Kosovo. Remember that film he showed of the train on the bridge..going so fast they could not avoid hitting it??? Then we found out he speeded up the tape...typical Hillbillery...say whatever it takes and damn the truth. Then there was the bombing of the Chinese Embassy, real good General Clark....why doesn't the media ever report this stuff??
I thought I had an original idea linking Clark with Stockdale. The military angle was just too obvious, I guess.
Although I doubt it, it wouldn't matter even if it turns out to be the Democrats' ticket in 2004.
All that Bush has to do is win his same states again in 2004 that he won in 2000, and due to the 2000 census shifting electoral votes, he then wins by 18 electoral votes instead of just winning by 4 like he did in 2000.
And the Democrats have *NO ONE* who can take any of Bush's 2000 states away, save for possibly West Virginia under ideal (for them) circumstances, which isn't enough of an electoral swing to matter.
So let Hillary run with Doctor Dean touting their new/old Hillary Care Rx. It won't matter. They still lose. Let Dean run with Clark. It won't matter, they still lose. Let Hillary run with Clark. Doesn't matter, they still lose. They'd have to find someone who could win Bush's states that he won in 2000, and they've got no one in either their declared or undeclared Presidential camps who can take those states from Bush.
Moreover, Bush won in 2000 with only 48% of the popular vote. Now in 2004 Bush is up at 63% national popularity. What was "close" in 2000 will now be an electoral blowout for Bush in 2004.
Consider that Republicans have gained more than 5% over Democrats in several battleground states' voter registration rolls. Consider that in 2000 Gore only squeaked by in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin...states that Bush now stands to add to his victory margin in 2004.
Then consider that the fat-cat Democrats are now trying to get their money back from the DNC. They've asked the FEC to rule that their soft money contributions have to be returned. Yes, they are a little late to the party, but the big money knows that 2004 is going to be a full tilt Republican blowout (+4 or even +5 in the Senate, +10 in the House, plus Repubs also win the Presidency in a 2004 landslide).
If the Dems can't find someone who can take away Bush's states that he won in 2000, then this 2004 election is O V E R.
Everyone among Freepers maybe. 99% of the public wouldn't have a clue. Hell, half the public doesn't even know who Dick Cheney is.
The screaming banshees of the left wildly support him (Michael Moore, Madonna, internet freaks), he is raising money and his polling numbers seem to bobbing up and down.
I don't think he stands a chance but don't count him out yet...
I love it when politicians gaffe and, for my money, the most memorable blunder of the last fifteen years came from former vice presidential candidate Admiral James Bond Stockdale. You may remember him – Ross Perot’s running mate. And if his name doesn’t ring a bell, you probably remember him as the silver-haired flesh presser who introduced himself to the world by asking "Who am I? Why am I here?" at the first vice presidential debate in 1992. He went on to answer – a Washington outsider, a Vietnam POW, an academic in the race solely at the behest of Mr. Perot -- but his self-directed interrogatories got genuine laughs from the audience, and when minutes later he told America he "felt like an observer at a ping pong game" between candidates Dan Quayle and Al Gore, the Admiral genuinely appeared off in his own little world. Indeed, after that performance the good Admiral was probably the last guy on Earth most Americans wanted a heartbeat away from their nukes.
We’ve met a latter-day Stockdale in this presidential campaign. He is fellow Vietnam vet and political newbie Wesley Clark. But whereas Stockdale knew who he was, the corporate-haired Clark seems genuinely clueless. Best documented, of course, is his stance on the use of force in Iraq, surely the defining “who am I?” issue for all Democrats this time around. In less than a week, the former CNN military analyst went from "probably would have voted for" to "I don't know if I would have or not" to "there was no reason to do this" to "I would never have voted for this war.” Not exactly the stuff of John Kerry – he of the “I authorized the president to threaten the use of force” when he voted to “authorize the president to use force” in Iraq – but disingenuous all the same. Then again, this is the same general/military analyst who predicted that a quick military victory in Iraq "was not going to happen," so perhaps things military just aren't this general's thing.
Mr. Clark’s explanation of why he’s running for president doesn’t inspire much confidence, either. I don’t buy the argument that he’s a Clinton pawn, mostly because it smacks so much of the conspiracy theories journalists are so fond of contriving. But there’s no denying that Clark himself said he wouldn’t be there -- as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, anyway -- if “Karl Rove had returned (his) phone calls." That's politically troublesome for Democrats, since it’s generally not a good idea to give the Democratic presidential nomination to someone who’s an admitted phone call away from the Republican party. And it’s factually troublesome for all Americans because, according to White House call logs, the phone calls never happened. For his part, Rove doesn't remember ever talking to Clark. Who Clark may or may not have called, and who didn't return his calls, and what color the sky was in that world, is only Clark's guess.
Which brings us to a third question, one not normally apropos for candidates for national office but a fair one in Stockdale's case and again in Clark's. That is: what planet is this guy living on? In Clark's case it's apparently the same one as Jayson Blair, because from where we're sitting, his version of the world bears only a passing resemblance to the rest of ours. Clark's tales of phantom phone calls to Rove are bad enough. But he also claims he got a call on September 11 from "people around the White House" asking him to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Clark did receive a call, alright, but it wasn't from the White House. It was from Israeli-Canadian Middle East expert Thomas Hecht, who called to invite Clark to give a speech in Canada.
Two months later, Clark told a Phoenix radio station that that the White House tried to get him "knocked off" CNN because he might be critical of its conduct in the war. But when pressed to back his allegation, he admitted it was based solely on rumor. No one has corroborated these rumors since.
Then there's the four-star general's declaration that he isn't a military man but "just a person who's served in the United States armed forces for most of (his) adult life." Really? Under that logic, Ted Bundy wasn't a psychopathic killer, just “a person who prematurely terminated the lives of young women for most of his adult life.”
I expect the tangle-tongued Mr. Clark and his handlers to spend the next few months "clarifying” who he is and why he’s here. I, for one, would like to hear him spend less time defining himself as the guy on the business end of White House conspiracies and more time defining himself as a man with definite beliefs. If/when he does so, he’d be well advised to use the same English language as the rest of us – that being the one that assigns to a four-star general the appellation “military man.” (Ditto Mr. Kerry, who’d do well to bone up on the difference between authorizing the use of force and the threat of it.) And whatever he does, here’s hoping he declares for himself a winner in the ping pong game of realities going on in his noggin, sooner rather than later. If he doesn’t, the flipflopping conspiracy theorist risks being relegated to trivia question status, alongside Mr. Stockdale. There may be worse stations, but for a man who wants a future in public life, I’m unaware of them.
To win in 2004, the Dems *must* find a candidate who can take away some of Bush's states that he won in 2000. After all, if Bush simply wins those same states again, he wins re-election. So this election in 2004 is pretty simple: it is all about those states that Bush won in 2000. The rest of the states don't even count for this game this time.Now, such candidates *do* exist.
If the Dems select Senator Breaux as their VP candidate, they *can* win Louisianna in 2004. Likewise, West Virginia could be won by a Democratic Presidential ticket.
But pro-abortion Dean (a freaking Planned Parenthood doctor, for crying out loud) and Hillary aren't going to win *either* of those pro-life states.
And if the Dems again lose in 2004 those states that Bush won in 2000, then Bush wins re-election no matter how the other states in this great nation go.
Thus, the battle is fixed on those states for now, and so far it ain't much of a competition. Should two or more of those states go into play, however, then the rest of the nation would finally matter to the 2004 campaign.
You heard it here, first.
Sort of like Howard Dean in slo-mo?
Stockdale at that debate where he forgot to turn on his hearing aide reminded me of the post-accident Captain Pike (Star Trek) who who could only communicate via a red or green light on the box that surrounded him. I swear Stockdale and Pike had a great physical resemblance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.