General Wesley Clark on MSNBC News Live with Tucker Carlson
August 28, 2007
transcript by RegNYC
Tucker Carlson: As the top Presidential contenders clash with one another and the rest try to gain ground, what is it really like being a Presidential candidate right now? Joining us now is someone who knows, MSNBC analyst retired U.S. Army General and former Presidential candidate Wesley Clark. General, thanks for coming on.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Tucker. Great to be with you.
Tucker Carlson: There are all these reports - I, I got to ask you about Fred Thompson, about the Thompson campaign. You know, he's he's doing well in these early primary states, in New Hampshire and Iowa. He's not technically a candidate yet, and there are all these indications that he, he appears to be having trouble making up his mind. You've been through this. You had a long run-up. You were drafted to run for President in the last cycle. How do you make up your mind? What, what's the moment where you decide, 'I'm, I'm all in'?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well first, let me say my case was entirely different than Fred's case, because Fred's been in elective office. He has a committee. He has advisors. He has- I, I was totally by myself, and my moment was, heh, in a morning with the Bible open, praying about what I should do, and I made up my mind.
Tucker Carlson: Hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And he's going to have much more sophisticated means of dealing with this, if, if you like. He's going to have done polls. He's going to have focus groups. He's going to have a cadre of political advisors. He's going to've already tested his money-raising capability. Presidential politics is about celebrity and brand image. He's worked to build up his celebrity. Everybody knows where he is. He's got a pretty good brand image as he starts with. He's a, he's a tall man. He projects strength. He projects a certain amount of humility. He's got Southern roots. He's got Washington savvy. So, it's not a bad brand image to start with. And now his question is: is it sufficient, all those assets, to move him to the top, because if you knew in advance that you were going to finish third or fourth, then you have to ask yourself, 'Okay, the purpose of running then is what?' So presumably, he wants to be President.
Tucker Carlson: But there, there, that's a great- that is of course the question. You know, if, if you're not pretty certain you're going to win, why run? And yet-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah.
Tucker Carlson: -there are all these candidates who clearly aren't going to win. I don't want to name names, Dennis Kucinich,
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (Laughs)
Tucker Carlson: -but they, there are some who are clearly going in.-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There are a lot of different motives. I'll tell you-
Tucker Carlson: Right, yeah. I mean, is it fun to run? Is that why people do it?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I certainly found it an exciting time. I, I loved the process of it. Joe Biden told me before I made up my mind, he said, "You've probably got a 30% chance of, of winning the nomination." He said, "If you win the nomination, you've got a much better chance of beating George Bush, but getting the nomination for you is going to be very, very difficult." And, and Joe had been around this for many, many years, and he wasn't wrong. Well, to me, to have a 30% chance to do something really wonderful for, for Americans and, and the Armed Forces and at a time of national security, that was enough for me to say that this is worth the investment of my time and reputation and what little financial resources I had. So, I did it. For a lot of people, there are many other motives. Of course, every one of them sincerely want to be President.
Tucker Carlson: Yes. What, what about - I know that in your campaign, there was much debate over the question of which states to pour resources into and in particular Iowa. Does Iowa still matter as much as it did say when Jimmy Carter was running, or, or even in, you know, in '92? I mean, is it still, is it a big deal?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think Iowa is a very big deal. I think it's really about momentum. It obviously depends on the candidate. You know, I, I'll tell you this, and I've told it to many other people. I told the people in my campaign, "Please," you know, "let's do Iowa." And they said, "No, no. Our agreement is: You're new to this. You're the candidate. We're the strategists. We've done the surveys. You can't afford to do Iowa and New Hampshire, and you can't afford to succeed in Iowa and fail in New Hampshire. And there's a big trap in Iowa is that it's a very difficult state to do. It takes a long time. You started too late." And there were a lot of very rational answers to my desire to do Iowa. In retrospect, not being there was a mistake, because Iowa starts the momentum train moving. And with the compressed schedule of primaries, we figured just from going through it, just think of it - it occurs on a Monday, so you've got all the Monday TV blitz, the Tuesday TV blitz, still talking about it on Wednesday. The newspapers are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You've got three, four days where no other messages really make the above-the-fold or the evening news. So, if you lost that momentum, and there's not two or three weeks before the next election, it's a very tough thing to overcome. So, yes, Iowa's important and it's going to remain important as long as it's the first.
Tucker Carlson: Do you think your Party's changed, in the last four years, become more liberal?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's hard for me to say, Tucker, because I wasn't a Democrat - I wasn't a member of any political party - until I think August of 2003, late August is when I actually announced my party affiliation. So, I don't have a long track record. I'll tell you this: there is in this Party, there's a, a broad view of opinion. There's some people who are very pragmatic, who are very middle-of-the-road, who are very independent minded. There are some who are, have stronger views in terms of human rights, in terms of the distribution of income and so forth. There's a variety of opinions. I can't say that the Party has gone more one direction than another. It is strongly Democratic, and that means they want to see a Democratic Presidential candidate win.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah. Yeah. H-how important is it that your family's on board when you run?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (chuckles) It's, it's about one of the most important things. You, you'd have, have a very hard time without your family.
Tucker Carlson: Did, did you have relatives who were against it?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (laughs) Well, I had- actually no, my relatives were very much in favor of it. We had personal considerations. We had to work our way through it. My son got married that summer, and there were a lot of distractions, and I'd never done it before. And I think as you and I have talked before, my wife had worked for a Senator for a couple of years as a volunteer in Washington. So, she had seen politics in Washington, yeah, very up close, and she knew how ruthless and brutal it was. And of course, if you live in Arkansas, and you've lived down here. You know how politicized it can become at the local level, and you know the intense passions that can be aroused. And so, as Mark Warner told me, he said, "Don't go into this unless you're prepared to lose, and don't go to it, into it unless you're prepared to lose a lot."
Tucker Carlson: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, he said, Mark (laughs) gave me his advice. He said, "My advice is: if you can live without politics, don't do it."
Tucker Carlson: Heh, heh. That was a decision he made for himself when he pulled out of the race.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I guess it was.
Tucker Carlson: Interesting.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -but it was a strong, it was a strong way of expressing it, and it is-
Tucker Carlson: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -difficult for people because most people who would aspire to something like this have been consistent winners. And then to throw their hat in the ring and take a drubbing, that's tough.
Tucker Carlson: I, I must say, I respect it. I really do, watching from afar. General, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Tucker. Good to be with you.
