When the hell is Clark going to announce?

[RobertFrancisK]

I thought it was pretty certain he would over Labor Day?? I'm a Clark supporter, but it's even starting to piss me off that he's dragging his feet so much. I'll give him another week.

[poskonig]

1. Dean is going to raise a ton of money.

Perhaps Clark doesn't want to have the comparison of money numbers going around in Q3, so he'll start in Q4. Or, Clark is leaning against running since winning Iowa or New Hampshire in a span of three months looks problematic for him.

[Woodstock]

4. it's really late for him to be raising money

he's got a lot of catching up to do - so he needs to decide VERY soon

I still have hopes he'll be Dean's VP

[LuCifer]

13. Let us not forget...

...that the last elected president, Bill Clinton, join the race in OCTOBER 1991...

Lu

[0007]

16. Would like to see that!

He'll run.

[Capn Sunshine]

2. CLARK IS RUNNING FOR VP

If he was serious about this, he would have announced by now

and now back to our regularly scheduled battle of the network memes.

[QC]

5. Bill Clinton announced in October 1991,

and while I could be wrong, I do seem to recall him winning the election.

The first primary is more than five months away. If anything is a meme around here, it's the "it's too late to get in the race" boilerplate that gets posted repeatedly whenever Clark's name is mentioned.

[poskonig]

15. Candidates NEED to win NH and Iowa this time.

The primaries are piled on top of each other this season.

[newsguyatl]

3. IF he does announce

which i doubt he will, it will most likely be september 19th when he's speaks at the university of iowa... that'd be my guess... he'll be talking about "the american leadership role in the changing world."

[ignatiusr]

7. Clarifications

A lot of people are getting frustrated. I am too. But I trust him to make the right decision.

Also-

1) Clark isn't running for VP. He has never given any indication that he is, and I think it would be illogical for him to do so. The only people who have suggested this are Republicans and Dean supporters. I really wish the Dean supporters would stop trying to drive this idea, because it's simply not true. Clark has said that he is not considering it, and his son, Wesley Clark Jr., said via the Daily Kos that the General is absolutely not considering VP; he is focused on whether to run for president. In my opinion, it's in the best interest of all of us that he focus on the presidency, because that's where we need him.

2) Clark probably isn't going to announce in Iowa on the 19th. He told a Des Moines paper several days ago that he would have already made his announcement by the time he made that appearance.

Also- Someone said he only had three months to raise money. It's actually five. Just an FYI.

I'm not sure why the Labor Day announcement went bust. Considering his background, though, I have to believe that he has a plan laid out.

[newsguyatl]

9. whoah

don't mess with clark supporters! you need a DRINK! lol


((he looks like anderson cooper of CNN in that avatar image btw)

[sally343434]

6. It doesn't matter, really

While Clark seems like a nice enough fellow, with his heart possibly in the right place, the only positive purpose his being in the race would have would be to help steer the political debate.

First, Clark wouldn't win. Generals with no previous political experience (as in, elected office), don't win presidential elections. (Ike was a different time and circumstance.) In fact, nobody without previous political office can win. Many have tried, but none have succeeded. That's just a fact of life in US politics. And, frankly, I'm glad, especially in Clark's case. I, for one, have no interest in a "khaki election."

Second, Clark may indeed be a little weird or unstable. Remember when he said that he was asked by the White House to come up with a link between Iraq and 9/11? Later, he changed his story. The latest version is that this "call" came from "a fellow in Canada who is part of a Middle Eastern think tank." This sets my alarm bells off, like Perot's insane ramblings did.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. You Forgot A Couple Of Other Presidents Like

Grant and Washington...

"Generals don't win......elections"


Where did you get that gem from?

[ignatiusr]

10. Sorry

I had to respond to this one too.

First, about experience: Clark has more experience on the foreign policy/national security front than anyone in the race, including Bush. It's domestic issues that he has no political experience with. However, he has an enormous wealth of knowledge on these fronts. He got his masters in economics and politics at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, so, obviously, this isn't a matter of knowledge. It's a matter of how many years you've spent in a suit in Washington. And if you think that this matters to middle America, you're mistaken. In my opinion, the media, as well as most voters, would swoon over Clark in the general election, especially considering what a stark contrast he makes compared to Bush. He would win, and he can win. So I think this is a pretty tenuous argument.

Secondly, about the 9/11 comment: You're letting yourself get wrapped up in the conservative media. The comment you made is based on misleading statements made by radical talk radio and Fox News. Clark never said he got a call from the White House. What happened is that he had, in the midst of talking about the overall conservative push to connect Iraq and 9/11, used the fact that he had received a call from a conservative after the attacks urging him to connect the two as an example. Right after that, Russert asked him where this overall push to connect Saddam and 9/11 had come from, and he said "It came from the White House, it came from people around the White House, it came from all over." He wasn't referring to who made the phone call when he made that statement, he was referring to the overall drive to connect Saddam with the attacks. And even if he had been referring to that statement, he never said anything came from the White House specifically, he said it came from both the White House and people "all over" the place.

[QC]

12. That "only positive purpose" is a mighty big one.

"Steer(ing) the political debate" is no small thing. It's what elections are all about. Why do you think Rove is trying to run Commander Codpiece as "the good soldier"?

That last bit is why I hope Clark gets in, whether he wins or not. No announced candidate is in as good a position to call bullshit on Bush's attempt to run as the protector of the American people. No one else is in as good a position to question Bush's conduct of this war, treatment of the troops, failure to pursue diplomacy, etc.

Even if he doesn't get the nomination, Clark can tear the bark off Bush's carefully-constructed soldier image. And, though we sometimes forget it around here, Bush is our enemy #1, not our fellow Democrats.

[Mz Pip]

11. If

two thirds of Democrats can't name the 9 candidates, it pretty much means that they have not started payng attention to the primary process yet. Most people out there in the vast regions of this country aren't political junkies.

If Clark announces in mid Sept, he'll get quite a bit of press. I think it's a good strategy. I'm certainly not going to discount him because he gave me moments of frustration by jumping in late.

Regardless of his decision, I have 6 months to decide who I will vote for in the primaries. Plenty of time for me to make up my mind.

MzPip
:dem:

[Starpass]

14. Two things

1) McAuliff told the Iowa governor last week that he expects Clark to run.
2) Clark has said his statement will be mid-September. You don't announce in the summer or on Labor Day if you want anyone to hear it. You let them get into the "fall mood" and then talk. If you noted a poll on the board today, it indicates that besides 2/3 of the people having no clue who the Dems are running for the nomination (gosh and I thought "Howard" was the name whispered by all as they went to bed in the evening to read things here lately), it also indicates that among people who know what's going on the biggest amount of support is for "someone else"...they haven't made up their mind and are not supporting any of them presently. All in all, I think there are going to be some major pushes in several campaigns that are going to start moving numbers all around the board.