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Wesley Clark says Dean lacks national security credibility -- and throws cold water on the idea of a Dean-Clark dream ticket. But after Saddam Hussein's capture, will his own war-critic stance work against him?
Dec 15, 2003 | With the presidential campaign of Howard Dean building strong momentum even before the primary elections, the idea has returned to fashion in Democratic political circles that retired Gen. Wesley Clark is in the race primarily to become Dean's running mate. As a hypothetical scenario, it makes good sense: Dean is a charismatic former governor from New England with strong progressive backing, but he lacks foreign policy experience; Clark is an accomplished warrior who has negotiated on behalf of America and its allies at the highest international levels, and he is expected to have strong appeal in more conservative Southern and Western states.
And so, the thinking goes, Howard Dean and Wes Clark would make a Democratic dream date in November 2004.
But just 48 hours before before the capture of Saddam Hussein outside of Tikrit, Clark made his strongest statement to date about why a Dean-Clark ticket is a bad idea. Clark, who says that he's uniquely qualified to go "toe-to-toe" with President Bush on security issues in 2004, said that whether he's on the ticket or not, the Democrats can't win with Dean as their presidential candidate.
"I don't think the Democratic Party can win without carrying a heavy experience in national security affairs into the campaign," he told Salon in a phone interview last week. "And that experience can't be in a vice president."
Asked if he was referring specifically to the much-discussed possibility of a Dean-Clark ticket, he said: "It's no substitute. It won't work, and it won't carry the election for this party."
It was an unusually blunt evaluation of his main Democratic foe, and of the party's chances next year.
Contacted about Clark's comments, Dean campaign spokesman Steve McMahon offered only a brief response: "We think that will be up to the voters to decide."
Although it is too soon to measure fully the political impact of Saddam Hussein's capture on the presidential race, it certainly hands a huge victory to Bush, who had been the target of mounting criticism over the rising number of American casualties and the failure of coalition forces to find the Iraqi dictator.
Among Democratic contenders, Sens. Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards and former Rep. Richard Gephardt all voted for the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to wage war against Saddam, and on Sunday, some of them reacted to his capture sounding vindicated -- and ready to bash Dean for opposing the war so stridently. Lieberman, whose candidacy suffered enormously for his consistent defense of the war, said: "If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place."
Dean largely avoided discussion of the political impact of the development, saying, "President George Bush deserves a day of celebration. We have our policy differences but we won't be discussing those today."
But Clark's case may be the most complicated of all. Shortly after launching his campaign, he said that he "probably" would have voted for the resolution authorizing the president to go to war in Iraq. He later called that statement a mistake, and said he had consistently opposed the war since well before it was actually launched. Earlier this week, he lamented the fact that American soldiers were dying in a cause that he termed "ridiculous."
Clark, who was in The Hague to testify against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic when news of Saddam's capture broke, released a statement that he "could not be prouder" of the armed forces for their accomplishment. A senior advisor to Clark said the capture only served to underscore Clark's point about the potential weakness of any nominee without national security qualifications. "It's a further example of why the Democrats need a candidate with foreign policy and national security experience," said the advisor. "This is a success, whether or not the war is ultimately successful, and it only makes it more likely that Bush will be able to run as a wartime president." But if the capture means the end of the guerrilla resistance against the American occupation, and Bush gets to run as the commander in chief who toppled Saddam, Clark could suffer as much as Dean for his wartime criticism of the president.
Whatever the ultimate impact of the spectacular arrest, Clark's own military qualifications have not yet put him in the commanding position among the Democratic candidates that his supporters had hoped he'd occupy at this point. Indeed, the very fact that the V.P. issue is such a persistent one for Wesley Clark illustrates the challenging position he's in. His candidacy is a mass of potential: He has an unsurpassed résumé, is an accomplished and recognizable television commentator, and he has the blessing -- unofficially, of course -- of the Clintons. Yet because of a late entry into the race, a rough beginning to his campaign, and now, the ascendance of Howard Dean as a solid favorite, the onus is on Clark to improve his performance dramatically enough to contend for something other than a place on someone else's ticket. And with a crowded schedule of primaries, he could face a challenge just to survive long enough to remain competitive in the critical contests of February and March.
Over the course of a week of campaigning in Florida, New Hampshire and New York, Clark demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is a better candidate now than he was three months ago, when he launched his first-ever political run. After a stumbling start, the former general has punched up his stump speech, developed a coherent domestic agenda to go with his foreign policy experience, and learned to answer questions from the media without shooting himself in the foot.
At the same time, though, whatever progress Clark has made seems to be overshadowed at every turn by the front-running Dean. In the past week, for example, which was intended to showcase his policy prescriptions for education, child poverty, the environment and public education, Clark found himself after each announcement answering questions about Dean's strength in the polls, his unequalled campaign war chest and, of course, his endorsement on Dec. 9 by former Vice President Al Gore. ("I don't like to talk about endorsements," Clark has taken to answering, "unless they're for me.")
What he does like to talk about is the single biggest attribute that may still allow him to be a factor in this race: his experience. More than any other Democratic candidate, Clark is running less on specific ideas than on his own qualifications, and the capabilities he says they give him for leading in a time of crisis.
Asked to name specific policy differences as opposed to the other candidates, he insisted that his experience is difference enough.
"The experience is the critical thing," he said. "When I'm working the policy, I know what it means. When they're saying it, they're just saying the words. It's the difference between describing a fastball and throwing a fastball. We're in a major-league struggle in Iraq, thanks to the Bush administration, and you need a major-league player to get us out of it."
That experience, as he and his supporters contend, is what makes Clark uniquely electable against George W. Bush in 2004, and he returns to the theme at every opportunity. Speaking by cellphone as he drove from the Little Rock airport to his Arkansas home, he criticized Dean for an answer he gave at the Democratic debate in New Hampshire on Dec. 9 to a question about whether it was ever acceptable for a president to lie to the American public. (Dean, who was clearly taken aback by the question, had answered: "I can't think of any circumstances, with the possible exception of some national security matter that would -- if some piece of information were put out that would endanger American lives or some circumstances under which people's lives would be in danger or something of that sort.")
"I don't believe you should lie in foreign affairs," Clark said. "You can't lie as a government. You can refuse to answer a question. You can go to the press privately and say please don't print this for national security reasons. You cannot lie.
"The experience is everything," he continued. "Foreign affairs constantly involve judgments about the unanticipated, and you draw on a background of knowledge and experience and attitude. At this time in our nation's history it's not as simple as a three-point bullet plan."
