Blogging Wes Clark for President 2008

DU Clarkies is a group of supporters of General Wesley Clark, who frequent Democratic Underground (DU). Some of our members are bloggers promoting Clark's vision for America. "Blogging Wes Clark for President 2008" reflects a weekly newsletter our membership receives by email, reporting a selection of updated blogs. WesPac Securing America is not connected with this grassroots website, nor is any other Wesley Clark organization, website or campaign. If you would like to learn more about General Clark, please visit Securing America and join in the discussion at Clark Community Network or read the Wesley Clark Wiki.

Wes Clark and the Iraq War Resolution gets a good going-over by Rapid Fire - Silver Bullets.

There is a current resurgence by certain Democrats who would like to believe that Wes Clark would have voted for the Blank Check Iraq Resolution that passed back in 2002. This may be occurring partially because so many of the Dem potential Candidates for 2008 did indeed vote for it, and so it would be useful for misery to have company.

One of the items used for their “proof” is that 2002 article that I previously discussed here. But there is one additional piece of evidence that has recently been pulled out again as proof of General Clark’s intent in terms of what he might have done had he been in congress.

It’s that ditty of an article written by Adam Nagourney based on an interview with General Clark on the day that Wes announced his candidacy in September of 2003. At the time, this article actually worked quite well in its aim (to squelch the General’s candidacy in the Democratic Primaries) due to the “headline” the New York Times so kindly decided on, and based on what was billed as a 90 minute “free rolling” interview by its author, Mr. Nagourney. Here’s a reprint of the original article.

Now on first glance the article “seems” damning! However, in closely reading this article, I had more questions about Mr. Nagourney's agenda than I did on Gen. Clark’s position on the Iraq Resolution.

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Moderating the Madness points to an article of interest to moderate voters.

Aspen Daily News today has a columnist making the case for General Clark as the only Democrat who can beat John McCain in 2008, based on Clark's appeal for moderates of all parties.

If Democrats wish to win presidential cycle 2008 they have a sterling candidate, the right one at the right time, in Wesley Clark, the articulate and knowledgeable former NATO supreme commander. To nominate a candidate either unwilling or unqualified to secure Iraq and Afghanistan -- John Kerry, Al Gore, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama -- guarantees election of Republican John McCain who can and will. If he, and not Donald Rumsfeld, had run the wars both nations would be secured democracies today.

Democrats gamble if they nominate a candidate voters view not viable as commander in chief. Las Vegas odds (17 to 1) and 60 percent of voters believe terrorists will strike the U.S. again before election 2008. If they do, an anti-war Democrat loses and McCain wins all 50 states. Only Clark facing such odds can defeat Vietnam hero McCain. Domestically, both are in the political center where the majority of America resides but Clark buries McCain as he commanded and won the Balkans War while McCain, a hero yes, was a prisoner only.

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Soldiering on for Wesley Clark takes a fresh look at some polling data and draws fresh conclusions.

Rassmussen conducted a national poll of voters from both parties (as well as none and other, presumably) to assess what percentage view favorably or unfavorably the various potential 2008 candidates. Of the ten Democrats on whom they collected data (Biden, Clark, Clinton, Edwards, Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, Obama, Richardson, Vilsack), only THREE were viewed favorably by a significantly larger number of voters, statistically speaking, than viewed them unfavorably. In other words, only THREE had more people like 'em than not.

Care to guess who those three are?

Well, I won't keep you in suspenders. But I will withhold some detail until I can apply a little analysis. So in alphabetical order, the only three with more to the good than to the bad, in numbers large enough to matter, are Clark, Edwards and Obama.

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Shouldn't a candidate for Chief Executive know how to actually run something?—from A Wes Clark Democrat.

The air in Clark land is all turgid and a-tingle with the clatter of fingernails driven by brain cells fraught with anticipation, tap, tap, tapping on computer desks everywhere. I hear it in the middle of the night with my blood beat: “Will he announce? When will he announce? What will he announce?”

That last one is the sleep-killer.

Since the summer of 2003, the constant in our lives has been the future Clark presidency. February 2004 might not have happened. (You left in the rain without closing the door.... We stood in the way.) November 2004 might not have happened. Except, of course, it did and the world is very much the worse for it. We wonder just how the voters, even more, how the party, you know, the professionals, could not have seen what we saw, what we still see. America needs Wes Clark's strategic brilliance, diplomatic skill, executive experience, leadership strength, and unmatched dedication to national service.

But looking at the “rock star” treatment certain candidates receive in the collaborating media and how that is reflected in polls and then how those polls determine who has the money to run a campaign and gets more and more money to keep that campaign going, very much including this, the pre-campaign, deciding for the voters who is or is not “electable” by how much “buzz” a candidate is allotted—we do see ahead of time, this time, how it happens that the leader America needs is probably the last one it will get.

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A Left Turn FOR CLARK examines the role we will be playing in the 2008 presidential election.

Part 1

There’s a phrase that seems much in vogue with political commentators currently; “suck up all the oxygen”, and its almost always preceded by these two names; Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The metaphor sort of implies that Clinton and Obama are “heavy breathers”, but the actually term used to describe them is usually “heavyweights.” The operative theory is that these two supposed political Goliaths will now so dominate the Democratic political terrain between now and the 2008 nominating convention that the resources needed to sustain political life for any other potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidates will be perilously lacking. Perhaps John Edwards can also eke out some sort of meager existence, this theory goes, but everyone else will be sucking wind.

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Part 2:

There are a few key factors regarding the 2008 race that conventional wisdom has forgotten, if it ever adequately grasped it to begin with. For example there are personal characteristics that define a genuine netroots candidate, and while those qualities can be mimicked they can not faithfully be manufactured. Stands taken on issues are of course important, but it’s not just what a candidate takes stands on, it is also how a candidate stands for their beliefs, that wins or loses netroots support. If the beltway has a current defining political cliché; “Oxygen in the Room”, then the netroots has one also; “Truth to Power.” Howard Dean wears the mantle of a Truth to Power Democrat, so too does Jim Webb. And so also does Wesley Clark, unlike the other second tier Presidential candidates.

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