The other day, I dismissed out of hand the idea that it’s too late for Wesley Clark to enter the presidential race. I noted that there’s a full five months before a single Democrat heads to the polls — and five months, in a political campaign, is an eternity.
While I continue to believe this, and haven’t changed my mind at all, I now believe I overlooked a key element to the timing problem.
It’s not about the time left ahead; it’s about the time that’s already elapsed.
Most of the Democratic field began campaigning in earnest as long ago as late last year. Howard Dean was already campaigning informally a year ago while still governor of Vermont, and some might say John Kerry and Joe Lieberman began running a few minutes after Al Gore conceded in 2002.
The benefits of campaigning for all those months cannot be overstated. Sure, everyone knows you need time to raise money and assemble a campaign infrastructure. I may be in the minority, but I don’t think Clark will have a problem with either of these.
What I’m more concerned about is the luxury of time the other candidates have had to work out their campaign message and strategy while virtually no one was watching.
Successful stand-up comedians like to create new material and try it out on small club audiences. They see what works, what doesn’t, and they make corrections. If they bomb, it doesn’t matter as much when only 10 people are there to witness it.
Clark hits the ground running with momentum and genuine excitement, but he has to be good right away. Every audience will expect greatness — inspiring stump speech, broad knowledge on issues, detailed criticisms of Bush, articulate answers to policy questions.
Already, some have panned Clark’s announcement speech yesterday and the media interviews he conducted last night. It’s a little harsh to jump on a guy who’s been a candidate for less than 12 hours, but that’s the problem with entering late. There’s virtually no margin for error.
The same is true when it comes to positioning among rivals. For the first six months of the “invisible primary,” most candidates played nice. (Howard Dean, hoping to boost name recognition, was the lone exception — he went after fellow Democrats early and often.)
But now that it’s fall 2003 and candidates are reaching the stage in the campaign when they need to start drawing distinctions between themselves and their rivals. It’s not their fault Clark hasn’t been in the race, and as a result, they won’t (and don’t) have reservations about challenging Clark’s candidacy.
Hours before Clark even announced, the Kerry campaign was already hoping to score a few points at Clark’s expense. Jim Jordan, Kerry’s campaign manager, told the Washington Post, “It’s a strange profile for a Democratic primary: a career military with no domestic policy experience.” He added that “some Democrats might find it unsettling he just decided in recent weeks to become a Democrat.”
I’m not saying that these criticisms are unfair, I’m saying they wouldn’t have happened at all if Clark had gotten in the race in March.
The media spotlight is also far more concentrated on the campaign now than it was a few months ago, and will be intensified further because of Clark’s high-profile background. Dean, for example, spent much of the last year making mistakes — in interviews, with staff, in forums — but a lot of people paid no attention to the gaffes because the race for the nomination hadn’t really kicked in yet. Dean’s mistakes went entirely unreported in a lot of instances, because the media, at that point, just didn’t care about his candidacy or the Democratic campaign.
Again, Clark won’t have that benefit. Mistakes will happen under the microscope for all to see.
I guess my point is that Clark has to learn to be a great political candidate faster than he’d probably like. I happen to believe he can do it; he’s faced harder challenges in his adult life and has always succeeded. Indeed, every hardship seems to have been an opportunity for Clark to excel and persevere.
Clark is smart and aggressive, and is blessed with tremendous leadership abilities. I, for one, couldn’t be more excited about his candidacy. If anyone can do this, it’s Clark. It just won’t be easy.