The beauty of a Wes candidacy is that politically speaking, he is the Anti-Hillary.
Hillary is hamstrung with an image as a Birkenstock liberal, no matter how far to the right she moves. She would have to nuke Tehran before middle America would believe she had any capacity to defend the country. And if she proposed a single payer plan, they would dust off the term "commie pinko" just so they could beat her with it.
Now Wes--with those four stars on his shoulder, and his Purple Hearts and service medals, he is INOCULATED against the "soft on defense" tag. And if HE proposes a single-payer system, well, it just sounds like it might be SENSIBLE after all. Which of course it is.
If Democrats want to see the advance of progressive values, there is no better salesman around then Wes Clark. I DREAM of a Clark presidency for this reason.
I like Clark a lot, and I like him more since the 2004 election. I'm still a doubter, though, because of the lack of experience. There are a couple of elements to this. First, he doesn't have a lot of experience in politics. When the GOP starts hitting him hard and fast, can he fight back? Bill Clinton was a master of defensive politics, and he still spent a lot of time on the ropes. Secondly, Clark's strength on foreign policy and defense is matched only by his weakness on domestic and economic issues. He may have great ideas and may have the right plan, but he's going to need to point to something when voters ask, "What have you done before?" Finally, we have to look at who he might be facing. The GOP nomination is McCain's to lose (unless Rice jumps in). How does Clark match up against McCain, who has years of experience in the Senate? Again, I'm open to being convinced, and I'd love to hear what some Clark fans have to say. I think a Warner-Clark or Clark-Warner ticket could be very strong.
from a Salon interview with Tim Grieve, June '05:
...TG: And what can you do about issues like these over the next however long it is before you make a decision about 2008? WC: It's a matter of both formulating and speaking and acting. I laid out a strategy in the book I published in 2003, "Winning Modern Wars," in the sixth chapter. It's still the right strategy for America. It's even more current now than it was then about how we have to conduct ourselves abroad and what we have to do at home to meet the competition from overseas. And then I think we've got to encourage Americans to get moving. TG: "Get moving" in what sense? WC: On education, healthcare reform, dealing with the reality of poverty, heading off crises before they erupt into war, promoting better business practices at home and a better business environment at home. TG: It seems like that would have, if not the dual purpose, at least the dual effect, of shaping the debate and broadening your own portfolio a bit. WC: Well, I have a broad background. People in uniform have had incredibly varied careers, and they've done a lot of things. Because so many Americans don't haven't gone through the military themselves, they may be not aware of that. In the military I was responsible for 44,000 schoolchildren in Europe. I had a number of hospitals [to oversee], I had to deal with problems of diplomacy, I had to deal with base-closure problems and job problems in the civilian economy, I had a big budget to manage -- in addition to being a sort of traditional general. And in the military, we got all the education that you could possibly want. I had a degree in philosophy, politics, economics. I taught political philosophy and economics. I was an assistant in the White House Office of Management and Budget. I saw how budget decisions are made. I saw how the president goes through the annual budget, and I worked the process with Congress.
WC: It's a matter of both formulating and speaking and acting. I laid out a strategy in the book I published in 2003, "Winning Modern Wars," in the sixth chapter. It's still the right strategy for America. It's even more current now than it was then about how we have to conduct ourselves abroad and what we have to do at home to meet the competition from overseas. And then I think we've got to encourage Americans to get moving.
TG: "Get moving" in what sense?
WC: On education, healthcare reform, dealing with the reality of poverty, heading off crises before they erupt into war, promoting better business practices at home and a better business environment at home.
TG: It seems like that would have, if not the dual purpose, at least the dual effect, of shaping the debate and broadening your own portfolio a bit.
WC: Well, I have a broad background. People in uniform have had incredibly varied careers, and they've done a lot of things. Because so many Americans don't haven't gone through the military themselves, they may be not aware of that.
In the military I was responsible for 44,000 schoolchildren in Europe. I had a number of hospitals [to oversee], I had to deal with problems of diplomacy, I had to deal with base-closure problems and job problems in the civilian economy, I had a big budget to manage -- in addition to being a sort of traditional general. And in the military, we got all the education that you could possibly want. I had a degree in philosophy, politics, economics. I taught political philosophy and economics. I was an assistant in the White House Office of Management and Budget. I saw how budget decisions are made. I saw how the president goes through the annual budget, and I worked the process with Congress.
