At least you admit to being perplexed..the rest of us keep pretending we know what we're talking about. Take me, for instance:
I don't think Clark's a stalking horse. Why thehell would Hillary even need one? Doesn't make sense. I think Clark is running at the behest of the Clintons to groom him, make him viable as her VP pick in 2008. She will need to have a loyal, politically experienced, military savvy VP, and one from the south, someone who owes her bigtime. That be Clark. (She couldn't go with Edwards or any other democrat senator.)
Of course Clark is expected to lose this time around, ciphon enough votes away from everyone else, weaken the field to facilitate a Bush win. Someone else suggests Richardson will be her 2008 choice VP, not a bad guess, but he might not want to be her lapdog for 4-8 years.
Just think how the senatorial candidates must hate the Clintons for stealing their thunder, and actually sabotaging their chances to win. If the Clintons and McAuliffe were thinking of the good of the party, they would have so embraced Kerry, (for instance, since his military credentials were best to put up against popular commander in chief Bush), Graham would never have run, and Dean would never have taken off as he did. Just think, the Democrat party could have been unified against Bush since early last fall.