A Left Turn FOR CLARK

The one who defies gravity of course; in Virtual Reality. Want to tune into the next James Webb or Jon Tester before they get picked up by beltway pundits? Visit Virtual Reality; where under recognized Democrats often play starring roles. For the politically minded, ground zero in virtual reality might well be Daily Kos, which occupies prime online turf well seeded by the netroots. Each month brings a new Kos poll of current or probable Democratic Presidential candidates, and the results there seldom resemble Gallup.

Though us Netroots activists might be a different kind of animal than more typical Democratic voters, it's not like we’re minerals instead. The netroots are affected by the same passing storms of buzz and conventional wisdom that buffet all Democrats as primary season approaches, just to a lesser extent. The major difference is, we tune in early and intently to races in preliminary stages, becoming quite familiar with some candidates most voters have barely heard of.

Conversely early scrutiny sometimes helps us locate chinks in a leading candidate’s armor that the main stream media seems unwilling or incapable of finding or acknowledging. The netroots always has its favorites. Those bestowed that status win extra support when push comes to shove in the primaries, enough sometimes to rise a tier or two to become a serious contender, seemingly from out of nowhere to more conventional eyes.

Gravity is my personal metaphor to describe how a Presidential candidate’s conventional poll numbers compare with his or her netroots numbers, with conventional polls forming the baseline. If John Edwards comes in at 15% in a conventional poll, but at 30% in a netroots poll, in my system Edwards defies conventional gravity by a factor of two. If Hillary Clinton scores at 40% in a mainstream poll, but only at 10% in a netroots poll, she’s weighed down in netroots gravity by a factor of four.

In the last Kos presidential poll, Edwards, Obama, and Clark took the first three slots in that order. Edwards and Obama each “defied gravity”, using conventional polls as ground zero, by a factor of roughly 2 to 3 times in the Kos poll. Wes Clark however “defied gravity” at Kos by a factor 5 to 10 times higher than his current standing in conventional polls. Wes Clark is unique among all of the non first tier likely presidential candidates, both by scoring in double digits in online polls to start with, and by performing so dramatically better in them than he does now in conventional polling. With Hillary Clinton though it is just the opposite. She lags at Kos in single digits, dramatically underperforming her conventional poll tallies.

If one believes the netroots can pick up on some things that most Democrats haven’t figured out yet about the 2008 Democratic Presidential field, Wes Clark and Hilary Clinton stand at opposite ends of the spectrum. If Kos voters are on to something about Hillary Clinton, most likely they are about Wes Clark also. If that is the case, than Hillary Clinton is the candidate with the most unrealized downside with the Democratic electorate, while Wes Clark has the most unrealized up side.

So if you are looking for a dark horse candidate to rise to contention for the Democratic nomination, pay some attention to netroots gravity. It may be your best early indicator.

Wes Clark is a painfully honest man. Why that adjective? Because of the grief Wes Clark frequently receives for telling the truth when a lie would go down smoother. Supposedly, however, honesty is a virtue. Clark is also a man who has devoted his entire life to service to his nation, and his heart to one incredible woman. No one can question Clark's loyalty or devotion. Nor can anyone ever say that Wes Clark is soft on security. He has four bullet wounds and four stars to attest to his commitment to America's security.

In short, no one can ever attack Wes Clark's patriotism or core values. Republicans find ways to lie about any Democrat, and they have in the past and will in the future do so about Wes Clark also, if they have to. And they will have to if Democrats show any sign of waking up to the fact that we can nominate a man who most Americans, not just Democrats, will willingly embrace as their next leader. Wes Clark is the real package that Republicans have repeatedly been trying to sell America a counterfeit version of for decades. Wes Clark makes Republicans ring hollow.

It’s been over 40 years since LBJ refused to choose between Guns and Butter, and we all came out losers because of it. Had he chosen only Guns, fewer Americans would have paid an economic price, and had he settled on Butter alone, its likely America would not have sacrificed at all. But LBJ couldn’t make that choice; instead he told America you can have this war and eat butter too. Thousands of Americans kept dying in Viet Nam and ultimately butter, along with all consumer goods and services, soared in price in an inflationary spiral until many Americans could barely afford to put margarine on their tables.

We are not exactly fighting a second Viet Nam War now, though Iraq is the closest thing to it for America since Saigon fell. Our military deployment in Iraq remains a fraction of the half a million Army of predominantly draftees that the United States once shipped off to war in South East Asia. Without a draft, most American families don’t have to worry themselves sick over whether their sons, and potentially now their daughters, will be shipped off to fight in a war they want no part of. With less troops fighting in Iraq than once fought in Viet Nam, it means there are fewer overall casualties also, which means less funerals for those of us at home to attend for the children of friends, neighbors and co-workers fallen in combat, far less than the bloodier days of the Viet Nam era. So much pain averted, for most of us.

Pain is nature’s way of saying change the course. Without the feedback of pain, a person fast asleep could be burned to a crisp without ever knowing it. Without the feedback of pain, a person might not realize that the bramble they were walking deeper into was ripping at their flesh. Pain is often an urgent warning to proceed at one’s very real own risk, but some dangers are more difficult to sense than others. In the days of old, coal miners brought canneries with them into the mines where they worked, because silent and odorless gases could accumulate in those shafts to a lethal degree before a miner could notice in time. They could notice a dead canary though, one killed by gathering gasses still below a level deadly to humans, but only if they took the time to look at that canary, it didn’t come looking for them.

This is not something new for Wes Clark. He’s been calling out their plans for domino like regime changes in the Middle East for years now, and getting grief back from them because of it for just as long. That never shuts Clark up though.

Right out of the box, when Wes Clark first declared for President in 2003, the Right was all over him for even daring to mention PNAC. They treated it like a joke, with the joke on Clark. In fact the New York Sun tried to paint Clark as a wacko for focusing his attention on "a small Washington policy organization" in this story:

Concerns have been expressed (I know, I’ve seen them) that General Clark might have trouble finding talented political staff still available to work on his campaign for President, because Clark will be entering the race for the Democratic nomination several weeks or even months later than other Democratic candidates. This is a concern that never seems to come up regarding Al Gore, when people assert that he may still make a late entrance into the Presidential race; it is only raised about Wes Clark. And that is probably because in 2004, when Wes Clark entered the race late in September, he had to cobble together a campaign staff quickly from national political operatives who were not yet spoken for at the time, and that became problematic for him.

Fair enough as far as that goes, but a wrong lesson can be drawn from Clark’s 2004 campaign experience. Obviously entering a race in September is a different matter than entering a race in, let’s say February. The truth is there are many good potential campaign workers and managers still out there to hire to guide a Presidential run, though not all of them have previously established strong national reputations. While John Kerry got the pick of the litter of national Democratic campaign advisors when he became our nominee for President in 2004, there are some who now say he might have been better off with a runt.

There are significant relevant differences for Wes Clark this year compared to his situation in 2003. Most obvious is this; Clark starts out with a fine staff already in place at his Political Action Committee, albeit a small one. Wes Clark knows what he wants and needs in a campaign staff now, having been through this thing once before. He couldn't possibly know that in 2003.

In 2003 Wes Clark and some advisers he hardly knew had to quickly sift through “the list” of still unaffiliated high level political staff, men and women with previously established reputations, to make some rapid hires. Clark had neither the time nor personal connections then to assemble the perfect team to work best with him. He depended heavily on hastily submitted resumes, and the advice of others, in making those hiring decisions. Clark couldn't bring his own team to the table.

Now think back to 1992. The team Bill Clinton won with that year wasn’t widely known and/or considered high powered by pretty much anyone’s standards, not until Clinton actually won the nomination and the Presidency using them as his staff that is. Consider these men as they were known or not known to the general public and political community BEFORE Bill Clinton won. Start with this New York Times article about Mickey Kantor:

It's a big one this time, a really big one. It isn't about electing the right person to office, no matter how high the office. It isn't about changing Congress, no matter how poorly it functions. It's not even about ending the war in Iraq, which now grinds on toward its inevitable bloody end game, sooner than it might otherwise have ended without us. This challenge it's about stopping a war from ever starting; the war with Iran that without our coordinated and concerted efforts may well begin within months.

I have no interest in debating whether there is a rising danger of war with Iran. Anyone who thinks otherwise can find plenty of other people to go play blog with. And, for the moment, anyone who believes planning to attack Iran is the appropriate way to deal with our real or imagined conflicts with that nation is invited to go cheerlead someone else about it. I'll be blunt; I'm writing this to those already convinced and against now, not to nay sayers or skeptics.

A call for action has been sounded. The real struggle to stop a war with Iran is upon us, and we, the netroots, have a critical role to play to stop this incredibly dangerous escalation of violence. What might begin as a "U.S. surgical strike" against "designated targets" inside Iran would surely not end there. Bush and Cheney continue playing with matches. They burned down the house in Iraq last time, but this time the whole neighborhood may go up in flames. The time for Netroots action is NOW.

Bush won't seek a vote for attacking Iran. It will not take a resolution from Congress to start a war with Iran; it will just take an executive order to launch some cruise missiles and deploy some bombers. Speaking only for myself, I am not looking to Congress now for leadership. I am looking to organize enough direct pressure from the American people to make Congress follow us.

Our political class, by and large, has lacked the courage to advocate for Peace with Iran. I do not consider favoring talks with Iran to be advocating for Peace, not if every other word uttered by those who favor such talks further demonizes that nation and its current leadership and focuses ONLY on what Iran needs to do to become an acceptable member of the international community. I do not consider that real leadership. For now I will settle for members of Congress ceasing being part of the problem pushing us to fight with Iran.

Too many members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, actively play up or into saber rattling against Iran. That is what has to stop immediately. That is a political problem in a broad sense, not a legislative problem per se. What peace activists failed to do enough of last time was counter the climate of fear, fed by saber rattling about our "enemies”, that laid the groundwork for Democrats to let the Iraq war to happen. A toxic cocktail of fear and derision was served up to the public in the build up to the Iraq war that actually preceded the IWR vote in 2002.