Carbetbagger sets record straight about Clark 2004
Submitted by mad4clark on December 5, 2006 - 11:41am.
2004 | John Edwards | John Kerry | Wesley Clark | Democratic politics
Finally.....
.....But I think it’s worth noting that Clark never really got his due as a candidate. The Times said he “struggled to master the difficulties” of being a presidential candidate, while Scheiber said Clark failed because he “turned out to be a pretty lousy politician.”
I followed Clark’s campaign pretty closely in 2004 and I remember things slightly differently.
Indeed, looking back, I think the conventional wisdom is that John Edwards excelled as a candidate, while Clark never really caught on with voters. That’s not quite what happened.....
snip
But the media was unimpressed. A day after Clark and Edwards each won their first primaries, and Clark outperformed Edwards in a majority of the mini-Super Tuesday contests, news outlets praised Edwards and dismissed Clark. Salon, for example, ran a major feature, taking a look at the race for the nomination. The headline: “And then there were two.” A big picture accompanied the article with Kerry and Edwards. The article said Clark “posted disappointing numbers in the seven-state primary” and “may not be long for the game.” Again, this was a day after Clark actually did slightly better than Edwards....
Read the whole thing, bookmark, and whip it out every time someone tries to sell the old BS "poor candidate" meme.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9242.html#more-9242
And on Blog Buzz --------->
seem to forget the truth about how well Wes did in '04!
I can't thank you enough. We all can use this!!!! WOOHOO!
I'm leaving an don't really time.
Note: Carpetbagger takes dim view of posting whole blogs so it'll have to be done with original work plus two to three graphs from this.
Run Wes Run!
tomorrow as Maria & Tom will have a diary up, I believe, and we may need some new info! I'll drop Maria and email with the link.
are paying close attention to this information:
Indeed, looking back, I think the conventional wisdom is that John Edwards excelled as a candidate, while Clark never really caught on with voters. That’s not quite what happened.
After the Iowa caucuses, which Clark chose not to compete in, the four main Democratic candidates — Kerry, Dean, Clark, and Edwards — met in eight primaries. Kerry won six and effectively wrapped up the nomination in the first week of February 2004.
But taking a closer look, Clark did pretty well, particularly if you compare him to Edwards. In those eight primaries, Clark finished ahead of Edwards in five (AZ, NH, NM, ND, and OK), while Edwards bettered Clark is just three of the eight (DE, MO, and SC). If you include Iowa, Clark still outperformed Edwards in five of the first nine contests.
In fact, in those first eight post-Iowa primaries, if we look only at top-two finishes (candidates who came in either first or second), Kerry had seven, Clark had four, Edwards had three, and Dean had one.
when 'little-who?' was running a banner across the top of his site (or maybe that palmieri-person was), claiming a "tie" for Oklahoma? (This all of course, after the Shelton smear...)
"He is now as valiant as Hercules who only tells a lie and swears it." -- Will Shakespeare
watch and listen...
also remember seeing his people quote that too.
Personally, if BHO runs I think that JE is in trouble and that he realises this already. This is why he's seeking out the churches now - who's more religious, etc, and both appearing in California. They have both chosen poverty as major issues and I have no problem with this as it definitely needs to be brought to the fore - but I get the feeling that both are positioning themselves rather cynically.
As far as their personalities are concerned, I think they're very similar. Both attorneys, both very stylised, both very personally ambitious.
BHO also just loves to diss Democrats. We all know we're not perfect and change is in the air, but don't diss us then come asking for our money.
when Obama does that sort of thing, his Ivy League boxer shorts are showing. I suppose they don't teach, "You don't bite the hand that feeds you." at Harvard.
I ALWAYS point this out when a bodice ripper says Clark was "lackluster."
If he's lackluster, then, based on this evidence, Edwards must be a complete no-show.
But the media was unimpressed.
Because we're going to have to fight this again. What will it take to unimpress the unimpression?
Wes 08
Hi don,
I wanna know why ... the media was unimpressed.
In a word: laziness. Caveat Lector: What follows is a compliment to Wes, and not a criticism.
Wes Clark is a hard man to love, for a reporter. Yes, he has charisma, charm, humor, obvious intelligence, and is articulate. But after that ...
... you actually have to do some work to realize why he's such a strong candidate. You have to read. You have to learn enough about the world that the sound-bite solutions of other candidates start to seem shallow and ill-conceived. You have to push aside the easy "research" of chatting with other reporters over drinks in some Washington pub, and actually -- gasp! -- go outside the Beltway and talk to ordinary people. And you'd better have your civics and history books either memorized or at hand, or he's going to leave you in his dust as he talks about real issues and real challenges and real, complex, difficult solutions that, if they may not fully "succeed," will at least avoid catastrophic failure*.
If you're not willing to do all of that grunt work, it's much easier to latch onto the Messiah du Jour, the candidate who's telegenic and sounds oh-so-inspiring as he says nothing at all, or to just follow the journalistic herd and talk about the people the rest of your colleagues talk about. After all, it's easy (and well within your dwindling news budget) to dig out stock footage of Hillary Clinton or John Edwards or John Kerry or, or, or....
To really jump on the Clark bandwagon, the media types would have to do some work. And like all of us, they're lazy and will take the easy road rather than the hard road whenever they can.
That's why they remain "unimpressed."
Crissie
*By this I refer to Wes' proposals for trying to deal with the catastrophe in Iraq. Even Wes admits that there are no "good" solutions, and that we're stuck looking for the "least awful" one.
is a part of the equation, but only a relatively small part. These people actually do work hard once in a while - probably mowing their lawn. I'm wondering if they're so entrenched in the media world that they just pass on what they hear from others (TV shows with pundits interviewing other pundits) and the real world just passes them by. I also wonder if they get the word from "on high" that he's not to be mentioned. Or quite likely they're touting their own favorite candidate and are afraid of serious comparisons with Wes.
Wes 08
Corporate Press didn't/doesn't want the people to know about him as he can't and won't be bought by the Corporate Powers.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia
Like Eugene McCarthy nearly winning against LBJ in New Hampshire.
Like Howard Dean actually raising millions of dollars from small contributors via that new fangled internet thingy.
Like John Kerry winning in Iowa.
Like John Elway beating the Cleveland Browns from his own 2 yard line in the final seconds of the game
The first happened because the people of New Hampshire are pretty damn astute, the second because Dean had some very innovative volunteers, the third was partially engineered by Iowa media, and the last was just plain competent execution on something Elway and the Broncos had practiced repeatedly.
Maybe we can imitate the first of those two shocking events, or create another. Perhaps someone with media connections can arrange for the third. Wes and his staff will have to focus on the fourth. Somehow, though, we need a breakthrough before the national MSM will shine a spot on Wes.
Maybe HRC could throw her support to him.
"Withdrawal without a plan is no better than invasion without a plan." (Dan Juma)
how to get him the cover story of TIME.....well, you get the picture. Who do you have to know to land that gig, anyway?
...Democrat of the Year? (Is there such a thing?)
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?
we could go grassroots and get Dems that he helped to wish him Happy Birthday and thanks for .....
Whether they won or lost, there are probably Dems out there that would be willing to send him thank you's that they would like to make public. We'd need to put this together rapidly, and all over the country simultaneously though, so that other candidate's groups wouldn't spoil the effect by pulling together a similar surprise. Or maybe it could be a paid ad, if we could raise the money?
"Withdrawal without a plan is no better than invasion without a plan." (Dan Juma)
Mrs. Pelosi's nose out of joint? I'm hoping she will win because she has achieved something really special, but I'll be so p.o'd if its BO.
Definitely smelly.
But it's very unlikely that Time would go for it.
Still, I like to see brainstorming on this. Wes's potential candidacy could really benefit from something shocking (in a positive way, of course).
Um, another honor from European Royalty? A Nobel? An honorary Doctorate from ? A call for his expert testimony by the UN Security council?
O'Reilly losing his job after losing it really, really big time in an exchange where Wes sails and smiles through?
A JC endorsement?
"Withdrawal without a plan is no better than invasion without a plan." (Dan Juma)
Jesus said, "Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone."
-- from the Gospel of Thomas
...Syb quoting Thomas "the doubter", quoting Jesus > not quoting Harold Bloom (just to be clear)
:)
snip> “The Democrats must get off this cultural high ground they have been living on for the past twenty-five years,” write Jarding and Saunders. “When you want to represent people, you have to talk to them where they live. Talk to them about what they like to do for fun, what makes life enjoyable for them, what their fears are. And when you find out that they like NASCAR races, that they like country or bluegrass music, that they like to hunt or fish, don’t pass judgment on them. Embrace them.”
Some I can’t see at the NASCAR track, but others I can. Mark Warner I can, Jim Webb I can, Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas, I can, Wes Clark I can, and Tom Vilsack I can. It should be the everyman stop as Pat’s Steaks in Philly was or as the Irish pub in South Boston was in industrial days now past. And if candidates feel uncomfortable there then perhaps they don’t belong in Presidential politics. They will be writing off 227 electoral votes. Anyway, watching Vilsack’s speech last night on C Span I think he’s already got those votes. And he doesn’t need to hire Mudcat to seem regular.<snip
-- Mr. Q
watch and listen...
my 2 cents...yeabut Wes is "regular" in the most extraordinary way and that ain't no oxymoron. (and I can't get 'Jarding' off of my mind for some reason...)
yea, except for those rare times when he thinks it's going to be all about jonny & elizabeth going forward...
(so? i'm just too committed to WKC and having studied these 'particular ones' in the last pres. cycle, I just find that impossible to swallow - who's gonna buy that?)
watch and listen...
I've been pointing out that in New Hampshire and the Super Seven on February 3, Clark beat Edwards five out of eight times ever since Clark withdrew from the race. I'm delighted to see that somebody else figured out. (Or maybe he got it from me in one of the multiple blogs and messages in which I pointed it out, LOL!)
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?
'With well over dozens of votes cast, Buckeye State Blog’s straw poll is complete. Wesley Clark is the big winner.'
Somebody (besides us) was obviously paying attention.