PHOENIX, Oct. 10 — Gen. Wesley K. Clark announced a raft of top appointments to his presidential campaign on Friday, just days after simmering tensions inside the fledgling organization led to the resignation of his campaign manager.
Several of the new appointees are veterans of the Clinton administration. And the campaign has entered discussions with former Vice President Al Gore's campaign spokesman, Chris Lehane, who recently left the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Clark campaign officials said that with the appointments, the campaign was setting firm lines of authority and would become a more stable operation, though it still lacks a campaign manager and a political director.
"We have a fully functioning national campaign that is full-on," said Matt Bennett, a veteran of the Clinton White House and the last five Democratic presidential campaigns, who was named General Clark's director of communications on Friday.
"To get where we've gotten by Week 3 is unbelievable," he said.
Other appointments include: Eli Segal, a former Clinton official, as chairman and chief executive officer; Mickey Kantor, the former national chair for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, secretary of commerce and United States trade representative, as chairman of the steering committee; Richard Sklar, ambassador to the United Nations in 1997 and President Clinton's special representative to promote economic reconstruction in Southeast Europe, as chief operating officer; and Diana Rogalle, the former finance director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as finance director.
The appointments were announced a day after a debate here during which the retired general's rivals sharply challenged his party loyalty and brought up his praise of the Bush administration in 2001. They also accused him of shifting positions on the war in Iraq in an attempt to undermine the stature that he brought to the race as NATO's past supreme allied commander in Europe.
Besides having to fend off aggressive attacks from other Democrats, the Clark campaign has had to deal with internal disputes like how best to sell the candidate, where to open offices, the degree to which the grass-roots draft-Clark movement will be integrated into high-level decision-making and how to teach basic political skills to a novice of campaigning.
For example, General Clark made himself vulnerable to questions about his party loyalty by failing to register as a Democrat until last week. He also continued to give paid speeches after he announced his candidacy on Sept. 17, in possible violation of Federal Election Commission rules. And he only just resigned from the boards of two companies, including the Acxiom Corporation, a data analysis firm based in Little Rock, Ark., which signed a $300,000 contract for his help in lobbying the government for homeland security business.
On Tuesday, General Clark's campaign manager, Donnie Fowler, resigned abruptly.
Allies of Mr. Fowler, 35, who was a field organizer for Mr. Gore's campaign and whose father, Donald L. Fowler, is a former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he saw his influence being eroded.
They also said Mr. Fowler favored putting more resources into state organizations than the campaign had done so far and that he feared that by taking on so many establishment political professionals, the campaign would lose the "outsider" label that had attracted so many volunteers in the first place.
But others inside the campaign said Mr. Fowler had exercised bad judgment and was responsible for one of the campaign's early blunders — sending the inexperienced general out with reporters on his first day as a candidate. That was when General Clark said he "probably" would have supported the Congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force in Iraq. He has been trying to explain that statement ever since, insisting in Thursday's debate that he never supported the war.
Mr. Sklar said he regretted Mr. Fowler's departure and that he hoped the campaign "could find some way to work with him." But Mr. Fowler turned down the job of political director, and it is not clear whether he will return.
Mr. Sklar said that while the campaign had "hit the beach in a scattered fashion," it was now focused and organized.
The Clark campaign, which began on the fly with no computers or telephones, recently moved into the renovated Union Station building in Little Rock.
Still, several matters remain unsettled. Aides say there is an internal debate about whether to compete seriously in Iowa, which holds the first caucuses in January. Mr. Bennett said on Friday, "We have to target our resources where they make the most sense." He said that Iowa was difficult for candidates entering late because competing in the caucuses takes months of organization.
In New Hampshire, Steve Bouchard, who was Senator Bob Graham's New Hampshire director before the senator dropped out, was setting up an office this weekend for Mr. Clark. In another sign of growing discipline, the campaign expects to make major policy statements, including on health care and the economy, over the next few weeks.
There is also some discussion of setting up a small office in Washington, modeled on Bill Clinton's campaign office in 1992, as a way to work with members of Congress. But the headquarters would remain in Little Rock, officials said.
And many campaign officials are expecting the arrival of Mr. Lehane, who, after he left Mr. Kerry as an unpaid adviser, worked against the gubernatorial recall in California. Mr. Lehane was in Little Rock this week, helping his wife, Audrey Evans, settle in to the Clark campaign as a liaison between policy advisers and press advisers.
Mr. Lehane said on Friday, "General Clark is a very, very impressive person, a man of impeccable credentials, and I admire the cut of his jib." But Mr. Lehane said he would not decide for a week or so whether to join the campaign.
Because Mr. Fowler was widely regarded, his resignation was viewed as a blow by some inside the campaign.
"We were afraid we lost our champion for the grass-roots movement," said Maya Israel, who joined after working for the Clark-draft effort and was named associate director of communications on Friday.
She said that Mr. Segal addressed the staff, including those from the draft-Clark movement, late on Tuesday night.
"We were assured that our ideas will be respected and that our energy and enthusiasm will be used," she said. "It was really healing for all of us."
John Hlinko, co-director of "DraftWesleyClark.com," an Internet-based movement, who was named director of the campaign's Internet strategy, was also optimistic, saying that lines of authority and a greater sense of order were emerging. "There was a lot of angst," he said. "I feel that's petering out."
It means Wesley Fart doesn't know the meaining of "Kiss of Death". Idiot. The boy must be deep into Hill-Whore's back pocket. I wonder what she's got on him.
Hi, troll. I smell a ZOT.
Give this newbie the benefit of Doubt, might be a newbie , but the distrust of the RATS might be legit
LOL, you do have a point..... bring on the ZOT :-)
This flighty Pampered, Perfumed, Prince, Wesley Clarke seems to be the last to realize what web he has been trapped in by the Clinton’s and their spiders. Wesley reminds me for all the world like the little narcissistic prince in Shrek.
