May 28, 2005

Wesley Clark in 2008?

Via the new Dartmouth Young Dems blog and Kos, here's a story from Carpetbagger about someone I had almost forgotten about as a potential 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. My thoughts on Clark? I railed on him pretty hard during the 2004 primary, being skeptical of his commitment to Democratic values, and finding him a deficient public speaker. Nor was I terribly impressed by the supporters he had at Dartmouth, to be honest, as many of them struck me as fairweather Democrats who would never discuss beliefs or positions but only "electability." I did have one good conversation at 5 Olde with an older, impassioned supporter of his here in Hanover (I think this gentleman was one of his campaign organizers around here, anyone know who I'm talking about?) who kept saying Howard Dean would take Democrats "straight to the fucking grave." I could see his point but respectfully disagreed with his opinion in terms of both good policy and good politics.

Though I remain unconvinced of his political ability and I'm pretty sure he holds fundamentally different ideas than I do on a lot of important issues, I'd have nothing against a Clark run in 2008 and would expect a better, more developed, more substantive candidacy from him. On the one hand the guy is a former Republican, but on the other it's pretty nice seeing a con-vert to all that is just and liberal in this world.

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