Reply #38: Julie we respectfully disagree, with the emphasis on respectfully. [View All]

I am not disagreeing with you about the possible role of the Democratic establishment, that is highly plausible to me. And I don't find fault with Schneider's specific comments either, though I think the Party will never completely forget about Clark as long as Bush is reigning as a War President.

I think Clark himself believed that Dean did not have the needed international experience to be the right President for these times. I think it is more likely that Clark would not have agreed to run had Kerry been running stronger at that time. I think Clark's primary motivation for running was what he saw being done to our Armed Forces, how their lives were being endangered by chickenhawks for a partisan political advantage, and to further an ideologically driven (PNAC) agenda that Clark saw as reckless and fundamentally wrong for America's National Security. Clark believed that he was the best man to take on Bush and team regarding all that, and I have to agree with Clark on that.

Clark is actually a pretty straight forward guy. When he said any of the Democrats running would do a better job at foreign policy than Bush, I think he meant it, at least in regards to Dean. Clark knew that Dean would seek wiser counsel and not be beholden to a ideological military agenda. But Clark knows war and command decision making, and he thought it best that the guy at the top of the chain of command be seasoned in that role. And he thought the public would demand that this year from anyone trying to replace Bush. If one assumes (and many don't of course) that Clark was right about that, a Dean nomination would not have stopped Bush from getting four more years.

Members of the Party Establishment may have been pushing Clark for their own reasons, but Clark decided to run for his own. And I don't for a minute believe that the Draft Clark movement played a small role in his decision. Many of the Dean supporters at DU have spent time around Howard Dean, and know a bit about him as a man. That personal knowledge of what makes Dean tick I am sure went a long way toward reassuring many that Dean's move to the left from a prior centrist record was not just a cynical political ploy, though many outside his campaign harbored those suspicions. It is the same with Clark. Those who got to know Clark personally came to understand the sincerity of his true motivations, and knew that Clark was profoundly moved by the heartfelt outpouring of support for him to enter the race. Clark saw it as his personal duty to step forward when he did, to answer that call. He never stopped talking about it, he always was deeply honored by that draft movement and did everything in his power to live up to the expectations that we placed on him.

Clark has the heart of an idealist and the eye of a realist. You don't command troops in war without the latter. He would not have entered the race, given all the handicaps of late entry, low name recognition, no money, no staff, and newness to the Democratic Party, had he not known that he could leverage some powerful support to give him a chance at victory. Establishment figures may have tried to use Clark for their own ends, but Clark was doing exactly the same in reverse. Progressive activists like me who backed Clark didn't do so because of the DLC, we did it despite it, and we did so gladly. The fact that the Establishment wavered so quickly in their support of Clark says two things to me. One, they saw Clark as a lesser evil than Dean, because they feared Dean would lose to Bush and because Dean was a maverick outside of their control. Two, they saw Clark as an evil nonetheless, someone who could beat Bush but who was still a maverick outside of their control.