LET’S SAY you’re a former supreme allied commander of NATO. You want to be the 44th president of the United States. You’ve never held political office–not even as secretary of your high school student council. There are only four months left before the first Democratic presidential primary, and you discovered you’re a Democrat only two weeks ago. The cards you’re holding aren’t the strongest in the deck. You might even be tempted to think that your dream of global leadership is a fantasy. But not if you are Gen. Wesley Clark, who officially entered the contest for the Democratic nomination for president last Wednesday. This makes him the second silver star winner, third southerner, and tenth candidate in the race. Both Republicans and Democrats greeted Clark’s entry with uncertainty. Supporters say the general’s résumé and his command of foreign policy are what Democrats need to unseat Bush. Clark skeptics point to his political inexperience and lack of an organization as reasons not to take his candidacy seriously.
The skeptics sell the general short. Clark could become the Democratic nominee. So far, only Howard Dean has captured the attention of the Democratic base. But members of the Democratic establishment aren’t convinced that the former governor of Vermont could defeat President Bush. Democrats want an antiwar candidate and a candidate who can win. Some think Clark is the one candidate who is both.
It’s easy to find leading Democrats who are enthusiastic about Clark’s candidacy. No less a figure than President Clinton calls him “brilliant, . . . brave, . . . and good,” and one of the party’s two “stars” (the other being Hillary). DNC chair Terry McAuliffe says Clark would have “tremendous credibility” in a presidential contest. And AFSCME president Gerald McEntee declined to endorse a candidate until Clark decided whether or not he was in the race.
More important, a host of former Clinton consultants and fundraisers have rallied to Clark’s side. Clark’s new advisers include former Gore adviser Mark Fabiani, strategist Ron Klain, and lawyer Bill Oldaker. Arkansas attorney and former White House counsel Bruce Lindsey is behind Clark. So are New Hampshire Democratic activist George Bruno, Democratic fundraiser Skip Rutherford, and former Clinton trade representative Mickey Kantor. These men comprise a good chunk of the social register of Democratic consulting.
Another former Gore adviser, Chris Lehane, just quit his job as John Kerry’s communications director. If Lehane ends up advising Clark alongside Fabiani, it will be an important signal that the party’s top talent is backing the general. “It’s very impressive,” says Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, “that a guy who’s never stepped foot in the political arena can attract this type of talent.”
The fingerprints of these key Democratic strategists were all over Clark’s announcement last week. The day before, spokesman Fabiani leaked to the press that Clark would enter the race. The result was that Clark dominated political headlines for two days and overshadowed fellow southerner John Edwards’s relaunch of his presidential campaign. If this was the work of a political novice, then the other Democratic candidates have every reason to be afraid.
Clark skeptics focus on two weaknesses–timing and money–neither of which seems fatal. Contemporary politics moves so swiftly that a Howard Dean can rise from nobody to insurgent to front-runner in the space of a few months. Bill Clinton was polling in single digits in October 1991. And the last general-turned-president, Eisenhower, entered the 1952 presidential race only two months before the first primaries. “I wouldn’t support Clark if it were too late,” says Democratic congressman Charles Rangel, an early Clark supporter. “I just can’t find any substantial negative in the general.”
Fundraising is a more serious weakness for Clark. It’s likely that when the candidates file their quarterly reports with the Federal Elections Commission on September 20, Dean will have raised up to three times as much as any of the other Democrats. So far Clark supporters have raised a little over $1 million for the general. But Clark’s operation, like Dean’s, is well positioned to take advantage of Internet fundraising. What’s more, some Democrats say there’s still money to be had in this race. “The 800 lb. fundraising gorillas haven’t been tapped yet,” says Brazile.
Clark’s major strength, meanwhile, is similar to Dean’s: He excites people. This is evident in the Draft Clark movement, which has been pressing the general to run for over a year. Just one of its numerous arms, “The Draft Clark 2004 for President Committee,” claims to have coordinators already working in 48 states. Days after his announcement, over 22,000 people had registered for Clark on the website Meetup.com, almost twice as many as had signed up for Sen. John Kerry, who’d been running for months.
And supporters don’t view the general the way most people view politicians. They revere him. They believe he’s the Democrats’ savior. These are people who spent their free time in the long run up to Clark’s announcement getting together to watch tapes of the general’s appearances on CNN. Their speech is littered with military metaphors. Susan Putney, who heads the Draft Clark operation among Americans stationed in Iraq, told the Associated Press, “We are ready, willing, and able to mobilize for the general.”
As for Clark’s real liabilities, there are three. First, he is prone to conspiracy theories. In June, he told Tim Russert that he had received a phone call on September 11, 2002, from “people around the White House” urging him to publicly link Saddam Hussein to the attacks. Only after his accusation was picked up by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman did Clark go on the record and say that no one had called him from the White House. He now says he received a call from a “man from a Middle East think tank in Canada, the man who’s the brother of a very close friend of mine in Belgium.” While it turns out that someone who more or less fits that bill did call Clark and discussed possible connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, the call took place after September 11, wasn’t in any way sinister, and in any case certainly didn’t come from the White House.
More recently, Clark said the White House tried to have him fired from CNN during the Iraq war. He told an anchor on Phoenix Newsradio 620 KTAR, “The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war.” Once again, Clark has no proof. He concedes, “I’ve only heard rumors about it.”
Another potential weakness is that Clark’s background–Rhodes scholar, four star general, military theorist–is so attractive to educated liberals that they’re tempted to oversell his chances of winning the presidency. Just look at “Future Star,” an article in the September 15 Fortune magazine. The text is overshadowed by two full pages of photos of Clark’s face. There’s the general smiling. There’s the general laughing. There’s the general confused. There’s the general with a “come hither” look. “The Clark candidacy is a crazily overblown thing,” says former Clinton strategist Dick Morris, “probably coming from Western Europe via elite media circles. Clark will do very well with Democrats living in Paris. But he has no base in the United States.”
Finally, there’s Iraq. Last week, Clark muddied his stand when he told a group of reporters that he “probably” would have voted to authorize the Iraq war if he had been a member of Congress in the fall of 2002–though he “was against the war as it emerged because there was no reason to start it when we did. We could have waited.” A day later he said he “would never have voted for this war.” (It’s impossible not to be reminded of the classic Clintonism on the use-of-force resolution preceding the first Gulf war, in January 1991: Said presidential candidate Bill Clinton, “I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made.”)
The problem for Clark is that the Democrats who back him most ardently believe he has always been antiwar. Noting that your views on Iraq resemble the pro-war position of Joe Lieberman and the unclassifiable position of John Kerry, as Clark first did, isn’t the way to overtake Howard Dean, whose antiwar position is unwavering.
Even if Clark puts this confusion behind him and emerges as the most viable antiwar candidate, Iraq could hurt him in a general election. Democrats say Clark’s military record and leadership during the Kosovo war will bolster the party’s image on national security. Yet his opposition to the Bush policy on Iraq puts him at odds with the 71 percent of Americans who support the occupation and the 61 percent who think the Iraq war was worth fighting. If Iraq policy remains popular, it’s unlikely Clark will become the Democrats’ savior. If it doesn’t, who knows?
Matthew Continetti is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
