Reply #50: If You Think, Sir, Gen. Clark's Military Background No Asset In The Electi [View All]

[The Magistrate]

You have not been paying much attention to how campaigns are conducted, and how people vote, in this country.

Among the people, for better or worse, the Republican Party is seen as generally better suited to deal with matters of national security, and Democratic candidates are accordingly vulnerable where such issues are the ground on which people are deciding their votes.

It will, however, be very difficult to make the usual arguments of naivite and ignorance and pacifism that have proved so effective in the past against Gen. Clark. It is always desirable to deprive an enemy of a weapon he is accustomed to use to good effect: it puts him off his usual game, and forces him to improvise under pressure, which is the breeding ground for mistakes.