Reply #278: Everything Tom said, and one more point [View All]

[Jai4WKC08]

Anyone who's ever been involved in any type of strategic planning, whether economic, military, business or whatever, knows that flexibility requires resources. It just plain costs more to keep options open. Not just money--sometimes not money at all--but also manpower, access to markets or media, probably other things I can't think off, but most of all, time.

Time was the one thing Clark never had and couldn't get more of. He was pretty much confined to developing one overarching strategy to his campaign and sticking to it.

By the time Clark entered the race in Sept 03, indeed up until mid-January 04, Dean was the uncontested front-runner. The media was reporting that he had all but won the nomination already. So it made perfect sense for Clark to base his strategy on chasing, catching, and passing Dean. And by around New Years Day, Clark had started to catch up. In the first week of January, the pundits started to call Clark the anti-Dean (a few had speculated when he first entered the race whether he could be, but when Clark's initial poll ratings dropped, that all stopped).

The strategy, as I understood it at the time (admitedly just by watching from the grassroots cheap seats, assumed that Iowa would be split fairly evenly between Dean and Gephardt, that Kerry and Edwards would be pretty much if not completely eliminated. Gephardt didn't have much in NH or anywhere else, so altho he would take MO in a walk (duh), not much more. Dean was expected to win NH, but a respectable second place would be good enough, because Clark was certainly likely to fare better than Dean in the South without much effort, and in the Southwest with only somewhat more. So Clark committed most of his resources (especially time) in NH, some in states like WI where it would be much closer, and planned for the determining contests to be in the big states of CA, NY and FL.

Of course, the rest is history. Clark had not prepared to go against the Kerry whirlwind that blew out of Iowa and swept thru NH. Really, none of them were.

But it brings me to the point of rehashing all this. Clark was positioned as an "anti-Dean" in a way that was more obvious than for all the others, because the strategy was based on outlasting all the others until he could get to the states where he'd be naturally strong. But it was the limits of time that caused that--he just did not have enough flexibility to turn into an anti-Kerry as Edwards did (and Dean too for that matter). It killed him in SC, TN and VA, into which he poured what resources he did have after NH, but by then it was too late. Without the South, he stood no chance against Kerry and dropped from the race.

I never have understood why so many Dean supporters hold Dean's defeat against Clark in a way they do not against anyone else, even the guy who ended up defeating him. I guess it's partly because Clinton liked Clark, altho he sure never endorsed him, unlike Gore did for Dean. Why the support of one is ok and not the other, I don't get. In any case, Clark was not in Iowa and had nothing to do with any anti-Dean stuff that happened there. And if Clinton was responsible for any of it, it sure didn't help Clark. Just the opposite, in fact. Maybe they resent the big-money donors who supported Clark--Dean always did have problems there, even now as DNC chair--but they ignore that Clark's average donation amount was about the same as Dean's, so he had backing from us little guys too. I personally think, and forgive the paranoia, that a lot of it comes down to not trusting Clark as a military guy and "former Republican" *cough*, so he's an easier target for anger. At least here at DU, it seems to be some of the same people who make the same arguments and hold the same grudges.