In hindsight, was it a mistake for Gen. Clark to skip the Iowa caucuses?

[Cuban_Liberal]

By not competing there, did Gen. Clark miss out on the 'bounce' that Sen. Kerry got? Your thoughts?

:)

Edit: spelling

[bloom]

1. yes

I could see at the time that he was missing a lot of TV exposure.

[Poseidon]

2. No

I don't think that he would have been able to marshall the support that he would have needed in time, in order to be able to compete effectively in Iowa.

[JohnLocke]

10. Welcome to DU and thanks for your service to your country.

:toast: :yourock: :toast: :yourock: :toast:

[Snivi Yllom]

3. yup

Because all the attention is on the Dean-Kerry race with the rest on Edwards in a minor fashion.

[wndycty]

4. Its only a mistake if he had done as well as Kerry and Edwards. . .

. . .if he performed poorly it would have hurt the campaign.

[sidwill]

12. Yes and No

Yes in regards to what happens in NH, but no after the NH race has passed, even if he comes in third in NH he will again have momentum.

[LuminousX]

5. I still maintain it was a good strategy

It gave him time to consolidate what he could in New Hampshire and since it is his 'first test' with the voting public, if he loses there (a loss being defined as 4th place with a very low percentage of votes) he has some security knowing that on Feb 3rd he has a bit of a firewall - a few almost guaranteed 2nd place finishes, if not 1st.

If he was in Iowa and lost, it would make his position in New Hampshire a bit more desperate. Campaigning from a position of desperation is dangerous (kind of like trying to get a date while being desperate, possible, but difficult.)

I do think he should have attended the debate. Avoiding the debate really looks like he is avoiding the issues. And when he gets caught in situations where he doesn't articulate his position precisely, it makes people feel a bit more uneasy about him. It isn't like he has a record he can point to in order to further clarify how he arrived at his current position.

[Walt Starr]

6. I don't think we can answer that completely until February 4

Tomorrow is not the end all be all of these primaries and the 2/3 states have a newfound power in the nomination process, one which cannot be predicted even if Kerry takes New Hampshire with 60% of the vote.

[mmonk]

7. No

he garnered support for awhile. The attacks are taking their toll. Nobody's asking real questions on the issues where he is concerned. They are trying to make him the issue instead of talking about the country's issues with him.

[Meldread]

8. Yes.

He missed out on some possible momentum. Of course who's to say? He might actually win NH -- frankly it's up in the air and anyone's game. The polls are everywhere. For all we know NH residents might just decide "Kerry is too Liberal, and I want someone with more conservative values." Then Tuesday we find that Joe Lieberman has won NH. It could happen. :P I wouldn't put anything past the NH voters.

[JohnLocke]

9. yes (but good for us)

[HereSince1628]

11. Coming into the race relatively late, Clark made decisions

about how best to go forward. I don't think anyone can fault him for realizing that his finish wouldn't justify the cost.

Should he win or take second in 3 or 4 of the next few primaries no one will be doubting his decision.

[Logansquare]

13. Probably not.

He polls well in the south, so his campaign is saving their bucks for the biggest bang. However, looking good in New Hampshire would give him some real momentum.

[SadEagle]

14. Perhaps.

He could have gotten quite a bit of the Gephardt non-viability points himself, as well as his core support -- I can't imagine him getting < 10% for that. Plus, he could have conceivably setup a mutual support deal w/Dean, the same way Kucinich did w/Edwards. This would have made it much closer, considerably weakening Kerry + Edwards, which would have given him more room to breathe in NH, and an opportunity to build on the strong support in February 3rd states..

[paulk]

15. in retrospect, probably

But it seemed like the best thing at the time, considering his late start. With no time to get an organization going there, he very well might have done poorly and that would have hurt him just as much.

His real mistake was that he campaigned against the wrong person during his free time in NH. He ran against Dean, and now it looks like Kerry/Edwards are his real challenges. Considering what went down in Iowa, I don't see how it's a mistake he could have avoided.

[hilzoy]

16. Depends.

Given what he (and anyone) knew at the time, I don't think so. Given the way the caucus system works, it seemed as though organization would be crucial, and moreover that it would be possible to do quite well in terms of overall popular preferences but not have that fact register in the outcome, since in a 9 person field it's hard to get 15% in each caucus.

Given what we know now, it was a real mistake. First, if people were looking for an electable veteran (Kerry) and a nice guy who ran a positive campaign (Edwards), Clark could have given them both in one package. Second, it seems to me clear in retrospect that the Clark people were positioning themselves to run in NH against Dean, which was an eminently reasonable thing to do, but now not to the point. Third, I sometimes think that what's really going on in this race generally, and in NH in particular, is that people are so motivated to win that they are voting primarily on the basis of electability, which is to say: not on the basis of their own preferences but on the basis of what they imagine other people's preferences to be. If that's so, then the effects of any previous win are self-reinforcing, and skipping the chance to gain the first win (which was the only chance, on this picture, to have the voters decide for or against you on the basis of their own preferences plus their own take on your electability, and not on the basis of your previously demonstrated ability to win somewhere) was a big mistake.

But I don't think that most of these last points could have been foreseen. Even the last one was something that the Clark campaign was prepared to counter if the victor in Iowa was Dean. (And note: when I say that the Clark campaign was prepared to run against Dean, I am not talking things like dirty tricks, for which there has been no evidence; I mean things like putting out a tax policy that is both good on the merits and a striking contrast to Dean's, putting essentially every record related to his entire life on his website, which is, again, both good in itself and an implicit contrast to Dean, and so forth.)