Note: Two page article.
Clark Makes His Move
Suddenly it's the general's turn to face the glare of his opponents
By Dan Gilgoff
CONCORD, N.H.--Denise Fournier is hoping for salvation. Pressed into the packed Concord High cafeteria on a subzero January evening, the 42-year-old English teacher is waiting for Gen. Wesley Clark to arrive and deliver her from Deanland. "I thought I was a Howard Dean supporter," she sighs. "But I'm beginning to think he's less electable than I've been led to believe." Two hours later, after Clark has called for Democrats to reclaim the mantles of patriotism, faith, and family values from the GOP in a brawny Arkansas drawl, Fournier is sold. "He has vision . . . a line about `human potential blossoming,' " she beams. "And I don't worry about his electability."
A week before New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, Clark--after months of thin crowds and spotty media attention--finally seems like "human potential blossoming" himself. Suddenly, he's drawing 500-plus-person throngs and trading his press vans for a full-length bus. Polls show him gaining ground in several states, including a strong surge in New Hampshire. Factor in the $10 million Clark raised in the last quarter of 2003, second only to Dean, and the candidate has the coveted prize of early primaries: momentum. "Clark has very much improved as a candidate," says state Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan. But she says the race is still fluid: "Most people won't make up their minds till this week."
Shaky start. Though his campaign announcement was long anticipated, the former NATO commander stumbled out of the gate in September, making contradictory statements about supporting the Iraq war and facing charges of arrogance from former military brass. "This is something people spend their whole lives plotting," Clark told U.S. News after a recent Dartmouth College rally. "It took us through Thanksgiving before we even got a campaign manager." It wasn't until Clark's so-called True Grits Tour of the South last month, when he retooled a national-security-centered stump speech into a sermon on American values--drawing heavily on Clark's own rural upbringing and military career--that the candidate hit his stride. "He needed to expand his biography to compensate for policy shortcomings," says Dean Spiliotes of St. Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
Indeed, even as Clark has ramped up policy speeches in the past few weeks, he continues to paint himself as a political outsider. Asked about his recent gains in the polls, Clark claims ignorance: "I look at success as how you connect with the voters. When they ask a question, am I answering it? Do they believe me?" After Dean supporters distributed fliers outside a recent Clark rally assailing Clark's voting history (he backed Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush) and his wavering remarks about Iraq, he told reporters, "I guess that's what politicians do. I'm not a politician." While his Democratic rivals intensified their arrow slinging last week, the general held his fire. After hearing the candidate at a VFW post in Milford, one undecided voter says: "He's taking the high road."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040126/usnews/26clark.htm
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