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Friday, September 19, 2003
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STALKING HORSES AND WOUNDED DOGS
So it turns out that the Clinton's had more to do with General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign than previously thought Interesting that someone who is being touted as so brilliant can be so blind to the motives of Bill and Hill. Especially someone who's been bitten on the ass by Bill Clinton before and proceeded to write what I understand to be a really angry book about the whole experience.
It's becoming increasingly apparent that the Clinton's have a convention strategy at work here. It is as follows, Clark dilutes support for Dean (on popular appeal), Kerry (on national security) and Edwards (on southern moderate issues). Assuming that Dean wins both the New Hampshire and Iowa (which would knock Gephardt out of the race entirely) primaries, the field becomes wide open in South Carolina, where Clark softens up Edwards and Kerry without actually winning himself.
Then on Super Tuesday, those primary states are divided between Dean, Clark and Lieberman. Lieberman will probably win New York but a situation arises, for the first time since 1952, where the Convention opens in Boston with no clear front runner.
The question then becomes "Who can beat Bush?" I think that Lieberman probably could (in the same way that Clinton beat Bush 41, by running on his issues) but he won't have the delegates to win the nomination. Under this theory, a "Draft Hillary" movement starts on the floor, which conveniently allows the senator to sidestep her repeated promise not to run, citing party unity.
This scenario cannot play out without Clark in the race. Without Clark, as things currently stand, this race is Dean's to lose. Clark softens everybody up sufficiently that no one goes into the Convention with a delegate majority. Another plus is that Clark's campaign team are all Clinton veterans whom Hillary could neatly inherit by promising Clark the vice-presidency.
I believe that this is what's behind the Clinton support for Clark. Whether it plays out that way is an open question. In any event, Clark ends up being a tortured cur left in the South Boston park of the Clintons' macheivellian ambitions.
And they all live happily ever after.
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