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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
So far, says Geer, Clark's entry has hurt other Democrats more than Dean. "It seems to me what Clark really did was make it harder for someone like a [Joe] Lieberman or a [Bob] Graham or a [Dick] Gephardt to break through. It makes it more likely for it just to be a three-person race" between Dean, Clark and Kerry, he says.
Once the field shrinks, the rhetoric will likely get uglier. "Clark and Dean may be the last two standing, and then the gloves will come off," Geer says. "They're both after a pretty big prize. When that happens, it might not be so easy for their respective supporters to chant together."
Until then, though, Dean has little to gain by lashing out against anyone but Bush, and his supporters are too inspired and optimistic to harbor enmity for other Democrats.
At a short pre-debate rally Thursday, Dean addressed a throng crammed onto a hot patch of sidewalk abutting City Hall Park, laying out an analysis of the country's current predicament that resonates deeply with the liberal faithful.
"Over the last 10 years, our democracy has been undermined by a small group of right-wing ideologues," he said, counting off the now-familiar litany of conservative power grabs -- impeachment, the 2000 election, Texas redistricting, the California recall. "Our democracy is under assault by people who literally believe they have the God-given right to run this country no matter what we say." He continued, saying, "The flag of the United States does not belong to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz ... John Ashcroft is going around the country defending the PATRIOT Act. That does not make him a patriot."
Of course, there's still some tension between the two sides. Dean's followers are a heterogeneous lot, attracted to his campaign for different reasons. How they feel about Clark largely depends on why they joined the Dean team in the first place. Some adore Dean for fearlessly taking on a president they loathe, but their hatred of Bush means they also get a little thrill imagining their nemesis stuttering through a debate with a dashing four-star Southern general. Some independents and Naderites, soured on party politics, see the Clark campaign, like that of Dean, as an anti-establishment insurgency.
But antiwar activists who gravitated toward Dean because of his stance on Iraq may be turned off by Clark's flip-flopping on the issue. And those who responded to Dean's attacks on the DLC seem to hate the idea of a race that essentially offers a choice between a Rockefeller Republican and a right-wing zealot.
On Thursday afternoon, at the bar where 100 or so Dean supporters gathered to watch the debate over pitchers of beer and greasy hamburgers, Cicely Nichols, a 65-year-old adult literacy teacher, was scornful of Clark's military career. "My life is not about revering generals," she said, adding that Clark is being pushed by the "good old [Democratic Leadership Council]. If Clark wins the nomination, she said, she'll campaign for him, "but my heart will be broken."
Many of these followers love Dean because he freed them from the alienation they felt when Bush was riding high politically. They're in love with the movement they built, and that attachment won't be easily transferable to another campaign, especially if they feel sabotaged by establishment Democrats.
Michael Cole, a 39-year-old third-grade teacher from Fairfield, Ohio, says, "I was so despondent before I got connected with the Dean campaign ... if it just comes down to a bunch of insider manipulation, I don't know ... It's like Wesley Clark is Bush and Dean is [John] McCain, and Dean is saying, 'Join us, join us.' But Clark has the backing of the powers that be, people behind the scenes, the old establishment. He's just going to come across as Bush lite, and that's not what's gotten Democrats excited, not at all."
Well, maybe not all of them. The fact remains, though, that it's easier to find Dean supporters who are swooning over Clark than steaming over him. "I'm very excited about Clark," said Fredrick Longacre, a grey-haired man in a pin-striped blue suit holding a "Dean for America" sign at the Manhattan rally Thursday. "He's a very charismatic guy, and his stellar military record won't hurt."
