While I never really intended to start giving daily updates on Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark’s potential presidential candidacy, it’s starting to turn out that way. I’ve found a couple of interesting items to pass along.
First, Donna Brazile, a prominent Democratic Party consultant and manager of Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, apparently said yesterday that Clark will run and will announce his candidacy within the next two weeks.
According to the fine folks at DraftWesleyClark.com, Brazile spilled the beans in a luncheon speech to the Utah Democratic Party yesterday afternoon. (The report was substantiated by local reporters who covered Brazile’s speech.) Whether Brazile was merely predicting what she believes will happen or has some first-hand knowledge of Clark’s plans was not immediately clear.
Second, you can add writer/actor/filmmaker Michael Moore, who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, to the list of prominent liberals who want the Dems to nominate Clark.
At a promotional event for his best-selling book, Stupid White Men, Moore said he believes Clark might be the guy to beat Bush next year.
“There’s a four-star general…he used to be the commander of NATO. His name is Wesley Clark,” Moore said. “He was a Rhodes scholar. He’s a Democrat. He would repeal the Bush tax cut for the rich. He submitted a brief in support of affirmative action to the Supreme Court. He’s pro-choice. I could go down the list, and he’s actually quite good on all the issues — and he’s a general. I would just love to see the debate between the general and the deserter. So if the Democrats really wanted to win, they should run somebody who could win — and that would be an interesting race.”
Indeed it would.
Lastly, conservatives appear to be worrying a bit about Clark, as evidenced by critical features on the general in the two most prominent conservative magazines in America — The Weekly Standard and National Review. As Noam over at Demagogue put it, if these guys are already going after Clark, then Clark must be doing something right.
Better yet, the Washington Whispers column for U.S. News & World Report noted this week that some people in the White House — identified by their IP address — clicked through the entire Draft Wesley Clark website “in an apparent effort to keep an eye” on the potential candidate.
Hmm. Maybe Bush staffers a little worried about their draft-dodging, avoid-National-Guard-duty boss facing the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in the general election?