Then & Now:
From the Beginning … Part III

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From the Beginning Part III…

A Conversation with Jason McIntosh:
“The extreme of doing what is possible”

Welcome back to “Then and Now,” and thanks to all of you who commented on the first two installments featuring John Hlinko and Susan Putney..

Today we feature a conversation with Jason McIntosh, an early Draftrooter who was instrumental in founding one of the two major Draft Clark websites and organizations – DraftClark2004.com. This is his story, and his story more or less completes the sub-series on “From the Beginning.”

I need to mention the logistics of this conversation, because it took five people to get this story to the blog.

The two people who had the easy jobs, Jason and I, spent an hour on the phone. The third person is Kat Oeffinger, who arranged for the conversation to be recorded and transformed into a digital file. The person who did the most work was our very own Reg NYC, who transcribed the audio. She produced 26 pages using a 10-point font. I can’t thank her enough for her tedious labors.

First Florence and then I whacked away at the interview to try to bring it to a manageable size. I wanted Florence to do the initial editing for two reasons: she was a neutral party who had joined the Movement later, and I was “invested” in the story and wanted a third pair of eyes.

We did only a little editorial editing of Jason’s comments. We wanted to capture the energy Jason displayed as the conversation progressed. He got really wound up a couple of times. It was clear that just talking about “the old days” brought back to him the enthusiasm, creativity, energy, and synergy of the diverse components and the amazing people in the Draft Clark Movement.

Sit back and enjoy.
Stan Davis

Jason McIntosh — Before

Even though this series is titled “Then and Now,” I need to alter the title to “Before, Then, and Now” for Jason’s story. His background in politics is much deeper than that of many of the Draftrooters. I led off the conversation with his history:

Stan: From my recollection, you may have had more experience then in politics, prior to the Draft movement, than most of the others. So, what was that experience?

Jason: That's probably fair. Ever since I was a kid I was going to Teamsters meetings with my father. I've always been politically inclined. In fact, I registered my mom to vote when I was 8 and would make sure she voted. I've just been geared that way.

I think I was probably one of the few folks in the [Clark] movement that had both an extensive knowledge of the political world and truly understood the draft movement. And because of that, I had a feel for what lay down the road for the Clark movement, and so the idea was to prepare for what laid ahead..

Stan: I think you had said in the past that you actually worked for the Clinton Administration?

Jason: Mm hm.. I worked on both campaigns, the inaugural, transition-It was a great learning experience. Most of the time I worked for a gentleman by the name of Terry McAuliffe and he was President Clinton's chief fundraiser. He was actually the DNC Finance Chair when I first went to work for him. And he was just an amazing guy, I mean incredible.

Stan: So, Terry McAuliffe was the DNC Finance Chairman. He moved to the Clinton/Gore campaign.

Jason: Yeah, the President always had him at the forefront.

Stan: And then became DNC Chair.

Jason: Well, there was a lag. But yeah, he was the President's re-election Finance Chair, and he actually went on to be his Co-Chair for the campaign. Terry was also the Co-Chair of the President’s Inaugural, spearheaded the Presidential Library The guy had enough energy to run a small city. He really does. I mean, it was truly amazing to watch this guy.

Stan: So then, what did you do in the 2000 election?

Jason: Well, I was in the private sector at the time, but was active in raising money for various Democrats-when time permitted. I left DC before that to work for Montgomery, an investment bank in California.

Jason McIntosh — Then

We then moved into the early days of the Draft.

Stan: And when was it you discovered General Clark?

Jason: It's really serendipitous. After the 2002 election results, I was talking to a friend a good friend in DC- We were commiserating over the results. We started talking about what lay ahead in the Presidential race, since it starts the day after midterm elections. And as you know the election results really were depressing, not to good for Democrats, and we'd lost several Senate seats. Wellstone had passed away, and then, Mondale didn't win that seat. Saxby Chambliss beat…

Stan: Max Cleland.

Jason: Exactly. All that was going on. So, it was just depressing. And I was actually in Florida, and I remember it well. I was talking to David, who works for the U.S. Senate, and I had worked with him during the “Golden Era”, he was at Treasury under Robert Rubin, during Clinton administration- Dave’s just a helluva a great guy. And we were talking about who might run, this, that and the other, and there was something in the U.S. News and World Report, he had seen the Washington Whispers section, and he had mentioned General Clark - this is kind of a crazy thing — that he was in New Hampshire and that he might run for President. I'd heard of him, didn't know a lot about him.

Stan: I think that was a March 2003 vintage article.

Jason: No, it was November 2002. And so, that kind of stuck in the back of my mind and then…

Stan: But he's on CNN by this time, right?

Jason: I don't know if he was or not. So, that stuck in the back of my head, and in December, I talked to a couple of other folks, just in general, and his name popped up several times. I checked out the different chat groups.

After leaving the military, Clark went to work at Stephens Brothers, and a friend of mine from the Clinton Administration, Vernon Weaver worked for Stephens. So, I called up Vernon, probably the first part of January of '03 to get the scoop on Clark and his chances on running, ask “What's the deal with this guy? Is this real, do you think he might run?”. The idea of General Clark running for President was pretty intriguing, a Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas really captures your imagination. And so, I talked to Vernon on and off over a period of months -Vernon Weaver is a very courtly guy. His pedigree is second to none, he went to Annapolis and was, I think, in the same class as President Carter,. He was President Clinton's Ambassador to the E.U., European Union. I think he was SBA Director under Carter back in the '70s. He is very accomplished and well connected. I talked to him and I think he brought Clark into Stephens firm, and we just kind of talked about the possibility of it, but there didn’t seem to be much movement on the political front- nothing really out there.

In the meantime, in February, I got a chance to meet John Edwards. A friend of mine is a big John Edwards fan, active and early supporter. So, I got an opportunity to meet John Edwards. Edwards has a great story — good looking guy, smart guy. He talked about a lot of stuff that I am concerned with- but it wasn't quite there. Edwards didn't seem to have that magic, you know? Clinton, is the Michael Jordan of politics. So, it's hard to really use that as a standard, and it's unfair to a degree, but I thought, “God, I just don't see it.” John Kerry, I just don't see this guy having a chance at upsetting Bush. These were just my gut instincts.

Stan: Were you concerned about his lack of foreign policy experience at that point?

Jason: Not at all. Not at all. Clinton had very little. It's the mind. It's critical thinking skills I thought, “It's not quite there for Edwards.” And so, probably late February/early March, I was talking to Brent Blackaby. Brent worked for me at the Clinton/Gore campaign.

Brent Blackaby

I had tried to get Brent Blackaby to write his story, but he told me that it was Jason who got him involved.

Stan: Oh, worked for you.

Jason: Actually, in the summer of '95. We started Clinton/Gore operations in April of 1995. We started laying the ground work for that right after the 1994 elections.

Stan: Now, how did you meet Brent? He just applied and you hired him or…?

Jason: He applied and a friend, at Harvard had sent a letter to Terry McAuliffe praising Brent. So his resume ended up on my desk. It was a late one night, and I was going through different resumes, and there were two people stuck out, and Brent was one. I called Brent and talked to him, checked out his references and brought him on board. But anyway, bottom line Brent not only has a great mind — because there's a lot of smart people out there in the world — he has got a world-class temperament. There's a Latin phrase, " primus inter pares," -First among equals. And that's Brent. Brent's got a great temperament. He's got a great work ethic and his integrity is unquestionable.

Feeling a Draft

Jason: The possibilities of General Clark running for President reminded me of Eisenhower’s 1952 Draft. I had taken a course in college on Eisenhower that was taught by Stephen Ambrose-when it came to Eisenhower he wrote the book-literally. Eisenhower was successfully drafted and If my memory serves correctly, he never even went to New Hampshire and beat Taft handedly. Therefore, I figured the idea of drafting General Clark for President was within the relm of possibility. But this time, instead of smoke filled rooms of old we would have the internet.

Jason: Well, so I talked to Brent and said, "You know, it was fun when we worked on Clinton/Gore, and you know, it'd be fun to work together on another Presidential campaign .". He agreed. Now keep in mind, Brent's a very level, very studied fellow. And so, I push the idea of campaigning for General Clark, "We should get behind Clark."

And Brent, always one to remind you of reality reminds, "Well, you know, he's not a candidate." And my response is "So?" And I made my case that no other announced candidate could not win. For whatever reason, they just didn't have what it would take. And keep in mind, about this time we're getting ready to invade Baghdad. So Clark’s profile increases everyday.

Stan: So, we're up into early March timeframe?

Jason: So, we start kind of kicking around…So it's late March —and Brent's is like, “Hey that's a great deal let’s do it.” So, we reach out, and we startf meeting other folks online. That’s how I met Susan Putney. When I joined the WesleyClark2004 Yahoo group the one that Kevin Derby had started back in November 2003.

Stan: You had discovered that one, huh?

Jason: The great thing is nobody really knows him. Nobody knows him, or nobody, I don't think' has ever met Kevin.-talk about the power of person planting a seed.

Jason Meets other Draftrooters

Stan: And Susan Putney as well.

Jason: Susan Putney is an awesome, gracious steadfast woman. She's a quality individual.

Stan: She's a grand lady.

Jason: Susan’s impact on the Draft Clark movement was Herculean. She did an amazing amount for the movement, and I think she is the embodiment of the draft movement. If you took a handful of people, the cream of the crop, John Oeffinger and Kathy and Susan Putney, you know, all were just top caliber and Brent Blackaby and the list goes on.

Stan: Had you discovered or seen DraftWesleyClark.com yet?

Jason: No. It was not until probably late April. It was sometime in April.

Stan: : It was about the same. I think that's right. I think it really didn't catch any wind until early April. John Hlinko joined the Yahoo group on April 4th. And he had his site up by then, and he says he and Markos were just one day apart in their rollout.

Jason: Yeah, I think John and I both joined that same day.

Stan: He had it at his Extreme Campaigns site as a page there, before it went separate was the story I get.

Jason: Hlinko’s early involvement was crucial. There were other people too, like DraftClark.Com had been out there, and I think the actual first draft site was draftwesleyclark.us, which was started back in January of '03. They should probably get credit for being the first presence out there, but Kevin Derby's really the unsung hero, and the reason I like to mention that name is because I think what he does is…typify what the movement represents…The whole secret, in my mind, to making this thing happen was capturing people's imagination and making sure people had true ownership.

How many times have you heard people say, “I started Draft Clark”? You've heard it from a lot of different people, and they are all correct-that's a good thing, because people felt ownership of of the movement, so many people can say “I was a part of that.” they were not just, “interested in it and getting an e-mail newsletter.” They can say…“I did something. I was apart of history.”

You know. It was a real challenge, one, we had to keep things fresh and going, and we had to harness people's imagination- all without a candidate. Which kept everyone on there toes. That was the real trick. You know, how do you get a guy like John Oeffinger to get excited or pumped up. Well, they were already excited. So, the real trick was to give as many tools as possible to let people's enthusiasm carry them as far as they could run.

John's [Oeffinger] kind of your classic example, and Kathy [Oeffinger], of just, the quality and the caliber of individuals out there that just went to the extreme of doing what was possible.

Our coordinators had that feeling of real ownership, and that was the key to be able to go for months and months and months without a candidate. The draft was powered on enthusiasm. And so that's why we offered as many things as we could, services to people like the monthly meet-up meetings, conference calls, online chats, campaign materials-whatever it took. You know, we sent out packets to people with petitions, bio’s, shirts bumper stickers everything.

Stan: This comes a little bit later after DraftClark2004 had been started. It was that group — you guys, you and Susan and John Oeffinger, who really gave tools to the people. People felt ownership, but you gave them the tools.

Jason: Well, and that was the key, because going through a Presidential cycle and doing all that, there's just things out there that you realize, what does Clark not have? He has no constituency. He wasn't a governor. So he can't pick up the phone and call his long-time friends and donors. Who can he rely on? What can he build that he's lacking?, and so the idea is to build a model of coordinators in different cities, states and regions.

We collected people's e-mails, had them sign a petition, all that, and ended up having, I don't know, over 35,000 supporters, They gave us their e-mails for out newsletters, they volunteered to help if Clark ran, all that stuff. But beyond that, beyond just the casual supporter, there were guys like John Oeffinger, Dominique Cano, Bill McLain, Max Guyll, Selena Frye, Ty Gordon the list goes on and on – so many folks wanted to be a part of it and these were folks that you could pickup the phone and say, “Hey, Dominique, (who lives in San Diego), we need help ,”. And we used that to a successful degree. Like when he was on Bill Maher, we got tons of folks people in the studio. We had them create real positive, albeit, noisy welcome on that show, which is the kinda of thing that built the buzz.

The Radio Ad

Jason: So, in April, Brent had done a lot of work on on-line strategy, particularly like with Power E-Trade's rollout. So, he had real online expertise. So, we had set out, late March early April, mapping out an online strategy that would be able to be transformed into the political world. I'd enlisted another friend locally who is a great designer to help out. And then, we had their website they'd put up. We said, "You know, we'll kind of work together on this thing." And that’s when we decided to do the radio commercial, which I participated in, along with Hlinko, Josh and Susan-it was a real collaborative effort.

Stan: And it was your voice. It was your voice, was the male voice. Was it not?

Jason: Sure was, and then I used professional talent for the female. Truth be known, she is a real rightwinger-but liked Clark .

Stan: If Alan Alda can play the Republican on West Wing…

Jason: Yeah, exactly. But you know, she's great talent and she's got a quality voice. Originally the way it was drafted, the radio spot was a 30-second — We changed-Radio is best done in 60 seconds. So Susan, she helped buy it. We all kind of chipped in putting it together, and I went and helped produce it. And it ended up getting a pretty good buzz. And…

Stan: It certainly did.

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Jason: I think one of the best things to happen within the movement was to have dozens of different groups doing their own thing-much like a symphony

Stan: I will say this to my dying day, that the two main groups, DraftWesleyClark and DraftClark2004.com were very complementary.

Jason: Without question, but remember there were over 90 different groups.

Stan: They kind of specialized in different things. John was a marketer par excellence, and he could create a media buzz. But you guys, once people were into the movement, gave them something to do.

Jason: Yeah. Well, I'm more of a strategist and a tactician, and I enjoy getting into the operations as well. . But bottom line is, it wasn't just us either. People say, “Well, weren't there like two or three groups?” I'm like, “Correction, there were like 90 groups.”

Texans for Clark, Veterans for Clark, Gulf Coast for Clark. There was even a group for dogs called "Bark for Clark", for pet owners.. A guy out of Baltimore did that - Mike Miller. I mean, so that really shows you the spirit of the movement, and I try to keep that, to me that was very important, to be pure and a good thing, because it wouldn't last forever. I knew that that would go away and be more focused as a Presidential campaign. Some outsiders on the campaign would talk about all these divisions — There weren't divisions. You had people working towards the same goal-they were just on different paths-but we were all working towards the same goal.

Stan: Exactly right.

Stan: In the early going, wasn't there a difference in philosophy about forming a formal PAC or not?

Jason: Well, we just felt that was the best way to do it, and that's what we did. And it seemed like the best way to do it for transparency, and we were able to get talent, like getting Joe Birkenstock, who had just left as general counsel at the DNC to go into private practice. He'd been their in-house council and could lend credibility to what we were doing, which would help our movement gain legitimacy within the beltway

We built a hybrid culture. One of the major problems with the Democratic Party is DC is so insular, and I think folks in DC often forget who they're supposed to be fighting for. When Republicans talk about tax cuts, Democrats need to be talking about payroll tax cuts. Working families are having a hard time, and the middle class is being downsized- becoming somewhat of an endangered species.

Anther important addition was our press team lead by Mike Frisbee, who had just retired as the Washington Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Having Mike Frisbee from The Wall Street Journal was a real help for us.

Gravitas

Stan: Well, let's back up a little bit, and when you were seeing General Clark on CNN, especially when the war started, what specifically appealed to you about him?

Jason: Well, I tell you, it was, in one word, gravitas. The guy had it in spades. Here's a man who could deal with foreign policy. Here's a man who could go to Russia and speak Russian. It was kind of one of these rare things of somebody who had the ability, or you hope would have the ability. He'd never been in politics in his life, but being in the military and working in the Pentagon, you have to think politically to a large degree. I think the only place more political then the military is probably the Vatican. So, you assume that great political skills.

And I had reached out in March and talked to Mark, you know, his aide de camp and…

Stan: Mark Nichols?

Jason: Yeah. And I talked to him and opened the line of communications, to just kind of see what Clark was going to do. After a period of time, I got the feeling they weren’t sure what they were going to do. This gave me impetus to go full force with the draft.

Clark seemed to be kind of a day by day, test the waters, see what's going on, keep your options open. I thought what's the best way to help this guy, do what you can to create a group, a grassroots group of supporters out there. So, all that culminates and Brent and I start evangelizing and putting together a program but not just an on-line program, because it's not, in my mind, going to be enough. And so, that's when --remember how we used to do the conference calls? Or we sent out the weekly newsletter? Build an online/offline viable organization.

Building the Buzz

Jason: All those things were there to feed people's hunger about General Clark and what was going on, and to help create press. I'll give an example. On NPR, he was on the Diane Rehm Show, and on the Diane Rehm Show, he made the statement something to the effect that invading Iraq was the greatest policy blunder since the end of the Cold War. That's a very provocative statement. So, we went and pushed that out to the press. Every time he appeared on the a show or for an interview we would transcribe it, like when he was on Diane Rehm, we transcribed the whole thing. And pass it out to the press.

We had a several of volunteers. We taped it. We transcribed it, and we put it on the web. We went out looking for what he was doing and saying to try to get press to report what he was doing. Almost kind of like trying to pump up the PR for what he was doing to build that kind of interest. So, when he…

Stan: So, like with your newsletter, we've got a Yahoo! group of maybe, at that point in the summer, were maybe 400 or 500 coordinators, but you've got an e-mail list in the tens of thousands. And all of those folks are getting the newsletter as well?

Jason: Yeah so, because they came to us and said, “Hey, I want Clark to run. Here's my name. Keep me informed.” We did.

Organizing

Jason: And we tried to feed them into the different coordinating groups, so that if they were truly wanting to get involved, great. If not, they could sit back and check their e-mail every once in a while and see what we were up to. And so the feeling was to start building this grassroots army out there and feeding it and getting people focused and doing things and also for them to learn about Clark. That was about a 5 1/2, 6 month process from start to finish. Susan and I decided to open up a New Hampshire headquarters, probably late May/early part of June.

Susan would check certain places. We found one location that didn't quite work, which Kerry eventually leased, and we ended up with our Dover headquarters in June.

We official opened it up in on July 4th. A crew of folks went Dover, probably over two dozen in all= and the place was just dirty and just hadn't been cleaned or painted in God knows when. So, we spent our Fourth of July weekend working hard and exercising our First Amendment rights and spreading the Clark gospel..

Ty Gordon was there. A long with lots of other folks were there. There's another…

Stan: Ty Gordon, Massachusetts.

Jason: Yeah well, Ty Gordon, talk about a great individual. You know you're like, “This guy's never done anything in politics in his life. Now, I think he is in Florida helping run campaigns.

Stan: There are so many heroes from those days. Ty and Andrew Hoppin, who would turn out people in New York every time General Clark was somewhere there.

Jason: And that was important to create that kind of buzz and to give it that local flavor. And we also bought a computer server, and we allowed people to host websites on our server, and we paid for the hosting of [local] websites. The deal was if you want to put up a website, we'll get the domain, well help you design it. We can't run it, because we just don't have the ability time wise. So, you've got to take ownership of it.

Bottoms Up

In a presidential campaign (which would normally have a candidate) you should be as tightly run as possible, because your time is finite, your money is pretty much finite too. And so, you need to have as much control over what's going on as possible. As impossible as that is. Well, in the draft, we turned standard operating procedure on its head.

For the draft to work, we needed to have as much local control as possible-people out there in the states and communities doing their thing =because- remember we do not have a candidate-Clark was not running, and keep in mind you have no real paid staff. It's not an ideal situation, and so you have to really reach out and offer a lot of support to regional coordinators. So, you end up actually working for all your grassroots coordinators. As opposed to them working for you, they are you're boss. It was a real constituent service oriented structure.

Stan: And it kind of worked both ways. You'd provide some guidance on meet-ups and meet-up agendas and so forth, but the coordinators and the grassroots had to go out and multiply. Moving to Little Rock

Jason: Yeah, they had to do the hard work.

And the next deal is: We're going to Little Rock. We're going to open up our national headquarters in Clark's hometown. So we go down to Little Rock, check out a couple places. I meet with Jeff Daley – a couple of friends put me in touch with him. And so, I work with Jeff, who's doing the Arkansas for Clark. I ask him to assist us full time with the press. We've got press covered from a couple of professionals, so to speak, PR folks that had been working for the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe and places like that, but we needed a guy who was from Arkansas who would be a good ambassador and Jeff was perfect for that role-- he's got a great way of dealing with folks and meeting deadlines as well.

And so, we kind of worked our deal out, and we opened up our headquarters in Little Rock at the old Lafayette building, and I've got a picture I will send you.

We had an opening and a whole group of folks from all over the country helped with the grand opening, folks from Texas like Bob Gammage came down, and you know, the Texas chapter was the best.

I mean, there's not a Presidential campaign who could touch the Draft Texas coordinators and Draftroots. It was just unreal. And a lot of them came up, and it was just a good feeling.

It was a pure movement, and it was an incredibly special thing to watch it all happen, because you knew it wouldn't last long, just because of the way things are as far as timing. Either he's going to run or he's not and the window of opportunity is starting to close by late August. Most of us suspected he was going to run, we were all just positive and hopeful about the future. So anyway, we opened the headquarters, had a big opening, first part of August and things were just rocking.

Stan: Is that the rally that I read about?

Jason: Well, we did a rally a few weeks after we opened our national headquarters, and that was even a bigger deal. And actually, Josh [Margulies] and John [Hlinko] came down for that. We had them speak on the program it was tight. They did a good job-everyone was pumped up.

Stan: Right. That's the one I was thinking about.

Jason: Yeah. That was after we opened, but that was a good deal. Generated more press, and actually each event we kept doing kept getting bigger and bigger..

Stan: Some of you guys from the different sites had never really met before until that day. Right? You know, face to face, and you go out and have a beer together, hadn't happened yet.

Jason: Yeah, just because of geography, but we had lines of communication.

We spoke on the telephone, conference calls and emails- but not much direct in-person interaction. We had several electeds and formerly elected officials start to get involved. For the record our first elected Arkansas official to sign up was State Representative Danny Sumpter from West Memphis. At the rally we even had former Governor Sid McMath stop by, his son went to high school with Clark and I think they were on the swim team together. Governor McMath was governor of Arkansas a million years ago. He was an interesting character in Arkansas history, because he was very progressive and a very forward thinking guy. He was in the Marine Corps during WWII. He supported Clark when he got into the race. But it was great seeing folks like that being pulled in.

So, we had a great rally, of course got a lot of great press off of that, and the excitement really is hotter than a depot stove. I mean, it's getting almost white-hot, and it really starts building to a crescendo when he goes and speaks in Tennessee, and everybody goes to Tennessee. For some it was like a pilgrimage. The Boston guys (Ty Gordon's crew) drove all day and all night to get there. That dinner for the Tennessee Democratic Party was huge.

Stan: It's like the weekend before the announcement, wasn't it?

Jason: A little, probably ten days before the announcement, but just about that time. The speech…

Stan: Knoxville is it, maybe?

Jason: Yeah exactly, Knoxville. The speech he gave for that night, and if you can ever get your hands on it, was, his best speech ever. Other people have seen way more speeches of his and been around him way more. I'm just saying, if he would've stuck to that style, message and rhetoric we would calling him President Clark. It was superb. [We turned to the campaign. Jason commented on whether or not Clark waited too long to announce his candidacy.]

Jason: Clark's timing was perfect. Well, the reason you get in a race early is various factors, but the biggest in my opinion is money. Money was never a problem for General Clark, at least not raising it. He raised I want to say almost 4.5 million dollars within his first two weeks from when he announced to when he filed his first FEC report. And that just goes to show you, and it was all done on-line.

He didn't have a direct mail program or any of that stuff, and he had no network of donors out there. And he did almost effortlessly. And your traditional Democratic donors wanted to get involved. I had donors call me that I had worked with with Clinton/Gore, that were practically hyperventilating-they had to be involved.

These were various stripes of people, but whether they were businesspeople, lawyers, labor or whatever they were all saying, “I want to do something for him.I have to be involved.” I remember a big player in real estate, one of the country's biggest in San Francisco had to get involved and to do something.

One big trial lawyer in Florida calls me, a guy that you would figure would be 100% with Edwards, he wanted to do everything he could. And they all ended up doing numerous events and helping Clark, His appeal was universal-it really was across a broad array of folks. Everyone could see that Clark could beat Bush. It was a fascinating experience. It was incredible. It was an exercise in optimism that's what it was.

Stan: Well, through that, you know what — who is it? — Ohio Rob Stevens called “The Clark Summer” of '03, you weren't a frequent poster at these groups. You're kind of quiet behind the scenes. What are you doing? Because you didn't talk about what you did.

Jason: Well, there were other people talking about what was going on. I'm not much, as far as ego or vanity in that respect. My thing is constantly, what do we do to keep things moving and going. My instrument is the phone. It's kind of like a play on the old, Archimedes quote, "Show me where to stand and I can move the earth." Mine is "Give me a phone and I can move the earth." Communications is communications-phone, email, conference call, radio, TV-work 'um all.

Stan: Do you still believe that, with the Internet?

Jason: Oh, I'm a big proponent of the Internet — don't get me wrong — or we wouldn't have done it like it was. But when you've got other members posting and doing their thing, it's being covered. You know, Susan's posting messages. I did occasionally. Brent does, but my motto is- Only talk when it improves the silence-and this goes for posting as well

So, that being the case, I'm also on the phone and working politicos and calling reporters. And also, if you'll notice, we always had folks from different parts of the movement in our press releases. We knew it was important to share the involvement. If you go through them you will see different folks in the movement being quoted- that was a part of the design of giving people ownership. Whether it's Bob Gammage giving a quote or John Oeffinger or a veteran named Mike Chambers, all these different people had a hand in the movement's creation. And that was crucial.

Stan: Okay, so now we get into the campaign, and you were hired. What was your role?

Jason: I basically dealt with ballot access and delegates.

My deal was where do you need me, where is our biggest need. Put me there. Because to me, this is missionary work or volunteer work. Because in the beginning, I made kind of a conscience choice. This is going to be my contribution.

I can organize very well, and I'm very strong willed and persistent. I believe in the notion of collective intelligence, and a Presidential campaign really I can be a big beneficiary of that process. Many of Clark's front line people in his campaign just were amazing when it came to brain power and their commitment to helping elected Clark- Amazing. Folks like Justin Leavitt, Courtney TesKa, I mean she's just unbelievable-the data queen, Jeff Houser, if all the people on the front line of the campaign were actually running the campaign, making the strategic decisions at the top, he'd be President of the United States right now. Justin Levitt should have been setting policy, Jeff Hauser should have been calling the shots when it came to politics. The people in charge, the ones that were calling the shots, for various reasons, made just absolutely horrendous decisions, and were not good leaders or motivators.

Stan: We won't go there, but I agree.

Jason: I think its important to capture the positive spirit and nature of the Draftroots and the Clark supporters. It's important to convey the spirit of what happened there, the importance of people feeling like, “Wow, I can do something and make a difference as a single, little individual in my corner of the earth.” That's what people got that summer.

Getting on the Ballot – Pure Grassroots

Jason: To give you an idea, when we were doing ballot access, to get on the ballot, you got 50 states and 50 rules-not counting the DC and US territories like Guam, American Samoa et al. And every state decides how they'll put you on the ballot. Oklahoma, you give them a Certified check and they put you on the ballot. Certified check – no big deal. Each state is very strict to its rules too. Like Oklahoma, it says certified check. John Kerry almost was not on the ballot in Oklahoma, because he sent in a campaign check. And so, they had to scramble during the filing deadline, because it was only three days, and they had to turn around and get a certified check. In 1992. Tsongas' campaign did even make the Oklahoma ballot, because of not paying attention to that detail So, when it comes to being on the ballot, rules are very specific and detail is everything.

Another great Clark frontliner in the ballot access department was Scott Chesin. If Clark runs for president again, Scott should be one of the first calls he makes.

Stan: And then you've got Amanda Propes in Indiana who had to collect thousands of signatures.

Jason: Well, and hers was not the worst.

Stan: Same thing in Virginia.

Jason: Virginia is the example I was going to give you, because it shows you how the campaign could utilize that grassroots support to get something accomplished and save money. All these Presidential campaigns, like Joe Lieberman spent probably between, $20,000-$30,000 to get on the ballot just in Virginia alone. Because they didn't have a grassroots network. You had to get 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot in Virginia of which you had, I think there were eleven Congressional districts, and you had to get — I think 400 signatures per Congressional district to get on the ballot. So, you have to divide them out. So, the deadline's coming up, and it started in July. So every campaign has had since July to some point in December, like December 1 to get it done.

Virginia and New York are notoriously the worst, when it comes to ballot access. So, to get access, everybody's going out, Lieberman goes out and pays petition gatherers and all that. I realized the strength of the grassroots and figure they can meet the challenge.

There was a guy from Virginia, a political operative, who was very knowledgeable about how you get things done-on a normal campaign. He didn't understand the Clark draftroots network. He was like, “Man, we need to pay. Here's some petition firms. We need to do this. It's going to be impossible to do this with volunteers only.”

He was from Virginia; he did know Virginia better than I knew it. I'll give you that.

But he didn't know the draftroots, as we'd come to call the Clark supporters and what they were capable of. And that's what a traditional political operative would recommend, because of their past experience. It's true that there's very little true hardcore grassroots out there. It's rarer than not.

I said, "Well, give it a chance. Here's what we’re going to do." I mapped out a plan. I said, "And if by this date we're not where we need to be, then great. We're going to call these people, and we'll go out, and we'll pay to get petitions. We put a mark on ourselves, and we say we'll get this done by this day. Well, what he hadn't suspected is that I'd gone through and figured out all the hot state delegate and state Senate races, because Virginia has off-year elections.

They have elections in 2003. And so, with that going on, I went and figured out all those hot races and the precincts that they were in and so forth. And we had volunteers at all the polling locations of these contested elections. Well, we made sure that every high turnout or every suspected high turnout delegate race and Senate race, we'd have somebody or a group at that poll all day.

Stan: On the actual election day in November?

Jason: Yeah. November of 2003. Remember they have off-year elections. In one day we collected over 4900 signature - one day - because we were able to harness and motivate our supporters and just importantly we were organized. And remember we didn't pay a dime. Take that Mr. Joementum.

Stan: Holy cow.

Jason: So, there is a concrete example of what the draft roots had to offer that was tangible, that saved money and was a super, super positive.

Stan: And didn't Virginia beat the boxes of petitions by a few hours to be the first, ahead of Howard Dean?

Jason: Oh, well it's funny you mention that, because it's exactly true, and the Dean folks scrambled, because they didn't want us to be the only one filing that day and getting the big news. So, they had their petitions. I'm not sure why they hadn't turned them in. I think that they were still trying to collect more to get the overage that they wanted. But we went and turned ours in, and they actually got the Secretary of State – because Dean's campaign Chairman was Don Beyer, a former Lieutenant Governor who ran for Governor and lost – to stay open an extra hour and a half or something so that they could turn on the same day and not be embarrassed. That's interesting. How did you know that they turned in the same day, because I didn't realize anybody else…

Stan: It was written up in a Yahoo group. When I read all the messages. Somebody from Virginia, I don't know whether it was Debby Burroughs or somebody that told that story at the time, and it was a neat story.

Jason: But yeah. So, that's just one great example that you can use on how Clark's draftroots rose to the occasion to get things done.

We began to summarize the conversation.

Jason: I think if there's one thing you take from the whole Clark draft is it was an exercise in optimism, it was all about people and hope. Clark supporters really were optimistic and hopeful, and that was Clark's biggest asset. It didn't work out, and I think it would have if he had gone to Iowa. I think he would have won.

Stan: That's a whole different discussion. [Comments and expletives on Iowa mercifully deleted.]

Jason: I'm a big believer in him. I think he would have a lot to offer as a President. He has a lot to offer as a civilian.

Stan: As a Secretary of State or UN Ambassador.

Jason: Whatever he chooses to do he will knock it out of the park.

Stan: He can't be Secretary of Defense for ten years [from his retirement in 2000], but he could be those other things.

Jason: I think he could do a lot of things. It seems to me service is at the essence of who he is. He's got an amazing stamina. He ran these 20-year-old guys and gals ragged who were on the road.

Stan: I remember the week between New Hampshire and the Super Seven. There were two or three days where he would start in South Carolina, touch down in Oklahoma, touch down in New Mexico, touch down in Arizona, fly overnight back to South Carolina and do it again. That pretty much covers what I wanted to do, and you've been wonderful.

Jason: Well, and thanks for taking the time. I appreciate all you do. With less than 100 days before this next election we’re really going to see a lot of great things unfolding.

Stan: I think so too, and there's a lot going on in the grassroots for WesPAC. They're trying to gather up people and get the states organized again and get out under the Clark Banner and get these people elected.

Jason: WesPAC's really, in the last year, done a lot of stuff, and, thanks to them reconnecting with a lot of the folks in the grassroots that made it happen. I think it's back on track and it's great to see. I read it and would love to participate a lot more. Just time is always, time is not our friend, but it's inspiring to see. They're good people, and they're hard working people. And you know, the Clark supporter's a different caliber of political activist.

You see a "third" generation of folks getting involved and some folks had no connection to the draft or the 2004 campaign-and that's okay-everybody's welcome. The Clark Juggernaut has always been very open to those who wish to get involved. It's that decentralized, non-DC atmosphere that I think motivates people, they find refreshing.

Stan: Couldn't agree more.

Jason: A better caliber of supporter, a Clarktivists if you will. They're more genuine in their commitment, and they're definitely hard working. Remember-Hard work equals votes.

My parting thought regarding the Draft is:

Everything that happened and the way it happened and the timing it happened during that whole draft movement, from March on, almost all happened in the right order and the right sequence and in the right way, for whatever reason.

Stan: It was kind of a perfect storm of timing and a bunch of individual people bringing their skills to the movement, all of which were complementary and making it a complete picture, and it's never going to happen again.

Jason: You can't step in the same river twice. It's always moving. But, that magic can be recaptured in a different way, but you're right. It won't happen that way again. But next time will be even better.

Stan: Well, I have seen this year a draft John Edwards, a draft this person and this other person, and it's just not going to be the same.

Jason: I think a lot of people were surprised, particularly the insiders, the kind of “Democratic establishment” who said, “It's too late. He doesn't have a constituency,” blah, blah, blah, blah. Didn't quite understand how dynamic things are out here, and it's really wild to look back and see how it all worked together. And it's just, it's unbelievable.

Jason: The combination of events and people.

Jason: And a lot of the amazingness, if I can invent a word to describe it, is the draftroots ability, devotion and drive. People were on it, and they were able to do different things and make it move quickly. Just like in Virginia, getting everybody to work together and getting those things, not only we were first to do it, but we didn't pay a dime to get on the ballot in Virginia. You know. Lieberman couldn't say that. And he'd been a Vice Presidential candidate. Clark really captured people's imagination, a person who would be a great President and who is a great leader. People are very optimistic. Clinton's whole deal about, you can tell people what's wrong, but you also got to give people hope for the future. You can't just let all that pressure build up and say things are horrible and miserable. You say, “You know, there's a solution and here it is.”

Stan: One of the best lines of the whole movement, I think, came from Alexandra Richards, who had been a Deaniac and converted to Clark. She said, "Well, Howard Dean appeals to people's anger. Clark appeals to people's hope. And hope feels better than anger."

Jason: The human spirit can't handle too much anger, too much shrillness. It's what turns people off.

Stan: It's negative, in the long term, negative energy.

Jason: Hopefully Clark runs again. It'd be great to see him in any public office. It'd be unbelievable.

Stan: In whatever capacity he's best suited.

Jason: But you know, it was kind of cool. Like one time we were on this trip when we were doing our Texas swing, and we were done. Everything was great. Each stop was awesome. I think Clark saw a real kind of flavor of what the hell was going on out there. You know John Oeffinger and what he did in Ft. Worth and Austin, Texas with the rally there.

Stan: Is that where Bob Gammage spoke?

Jason: Yeah. And a ton of people endorsed that day. It's just a quality day. Had a great fundraiser in Dallas-Fort Worth. I mean, everybody kind of did their part.

Stan: Well again, thanks a whole bunch, and Florence and I will go to work and from the transcript, we will weave it all together.

Jason: I'm sure it'll be an awesome piece of journalism-someone call the Pulitzer Committee, if you need anything else, just give me a call.

Stan: I will do it.

Jason McIntosh — Now

Jason continues to live in Tulsa and is a partner with Pioneer SMG, a firm specializing in resource development. He is still active, when time permits in politics assisting good Oklahoma Democrats. It sounds like he will be ready for another Clark run, if…if…if…well, you know. And if he is ready, we know from past experience what can happen.

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Send us your stories to sdavis8585@msn.com.
The next installment of “Then and Now” may be a special one – stay tuned, but we want to feature YOU very soon. Until next time…

The “Then and Now” Team,
Florence Upson, Stan Davis