They shouldn’t have been: when Clark wades into the battle, he expects to be taken seriously. Howard Dean knew to be careful when he and Clark held what was supposed to be a secret conference three weeks ago in L.A. Dean’s advisers had warned their boss not to even hint that Clark would be the running mate should Dean win the Democratic nomination. “That would have been both presumptuous and condescending,” said a Dean aide. Somehow, word of the meeting leaked–as did the notion (hotly denied by Dean insiders) that the VP slot indeed had been offered.
Once again Clark was furious; once again his response was to gear up. The day of the leak, Clark for the first time met his new senior PR adviser, Mark Fabiani. The general asked him to suggest a possible chief of staff. Fabiani nominated Ron Klain, who had filled that role for Al Gore. “What’s his number?” Clark asked–and called immediately. Klain said yes. Nine days later, Clark entered the race.
Now all of politics has to take Clark seriously–as the latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows. Entering with a tremendous media splash, “the general” seized the lead in the Democratic race. Among likely voters, Clark led with 14 percent, followed by Dean with 12, Sen. Joe Lieberman with 12, Sen. John Kerry with 10 and Rep. Dick Gephardt with 8. A candidate called “don’t know” still led with 19 percent. (And if Al Gore and Hillary Clinton are added to the mix, they demolish the field.) The poll is notable for three reasons. It shows that Clark starts with the star power and on-paper credentials to be credible; he diminishes the entire field in equal proportion; and Democrats, yearning for a winner (and suddenly confident of their chances of beating President Bush), still haven’t found their shining knight. “He hurts all of us a bit, at least for now,” said Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. “Where it goes from here? Who knows? A lot will depend on the general himself.”
Indeed, his first few days on the campaign trail were anything but shock and awe. Never lacking for confidence, a firm believer in the virtues of surprise, spoiling for a fight from the time he bought his first toy soldier (at 5), Clark entered the race like the squad leader of a commando raid. He’d reconnoitered the battlefield for 18 months, attending Washington dinners, meeting big-hitting donors, learning the art of the sound bite as a contract player on CNN, sizing up the candidate competition in chance encounters and green-room chats. By the spring of 2002, he was counseling with the likes of Democratic insiders Donna Brazile and Donnie Fowler about whom to talk to, whom to hire and where to travel, even while holding a job with Stephens Inc., in his home of Little Rock, Ark. “When our fund-raising folks sat down with him the other day they were astonished,” said Fabiani. “He’d already met everyone they were going to suggest that he see.”
But to give himself the option of a retreat, and to preserve the element of surprise, Clark didn’t actually assemble his team until the last minute, and didn’t give the “go” order until he had one last conversation with his wife, Gert, the day before he ordered his top people to fly to Little Rock for last Wednesday’s announcement. As a result, Clark had little experience dealing with the nuances of myriad issues–and no idea at all about how every word he uttered (in his entire life) would be parsed, inflated and exploded by media looking for simple declarations, clear stands and conflict, especially with other Democrats in the field. Hours after his announcement, ABC’s Mark Halperin asked Clark for his personal ranking of the two most crucial U.S. Supreme Court decisions of the last quarter century. The general drew a blank (but privately vowed afterward to hit the books).
More seriously, Clark managed to create confusion about his position on the war in Iraq–opposition to which was supposed to be his calling card. Pressed by reporters, Clark said he “probably” would have voted last year for the congressional resolution that authorized George W. Bush to go to war. Suddenly, the Democratic establishment’s beau ideal–a four-star foe of the war, a MacArthur who could not be branded a McGovern–seemed to fade into just another wishy-washy pol.
What Clark meant, his aides scurried to say, was that he would have voted aye only to pressure Saddam Hussein into allowing more inspections, and as a way of scaring the United Nations into taking more action. But that was the rationale many Democrats in the Senate (including Kerry and Clinton) used to justify their yes vote. Dean, by contrast, agreed with Gore: that a yes vote on the resolution was tantamount to giving Bush a strategic blank check, sanctioning the president’s theory of pre-emptive war. Dean says he would have voted no; Rep. Dennis Kucinich actually did so.
Clark’s new spinners blamed the con- fusion on reporters’ refusal (or inability) to understand fine distinctions–and on Clark’s own naivete about the brutish simple-mindedness of the campaign press corps. Lacking infrastructure (his new press secretary was using her husband’s cell phone), Clark personally printed from his computer a sheaf of his writings showing his passionate opposition to the war per se. “We screwed up, but we’re learning,” one aide said. In Iowa, he declared he “never would have voted for the war,” though war was precisely what the resolution he “probably” would have supported authorized.
The sound of such spinning tires on D-Day alarmed party insiders. Many view Clark as their best hope for derailing Dean, who will raise more cash than anyone else this quarter, and who is leading in polls in key early states. Clark is surprisingly at ease with voters on the campaign trail, and his time on cable schooled him in sound-bite science. The organizational tasks are daunting, but the battle plan is clear: take off in New Hampshire, win the following week in places such as South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona. Clark knows the old Army saying: plans are useless when the war starts. Can he adapt fast enough? Over at the White House, they profess not to take the general seriously. Based on history–his own and the country’s–that could turn out to be a mistake.
