Hope For Clark As VP?

by: Chris Bowers

Mon Aug 11, 2008 at 16:00


CQ politics notes an interesting connection between the Wednesday night theme of the Democratic convention, Wes Clark's PAC, and the featured speaker on Wednesday night:

Gen. Wes Clark's slogan -- "Securing America's Future" -- is the theme for the night Barack Obama's running mate is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

Clark's political action committee is called WESPAC -- Securing America's Future.

It is probably just a coincidence of bland messaging, but it is still encouraging. Picking Clark would be a wonderful way to stick it to McCain, and also to the punditry that went along with the Republican hyperventilation over Clark's non-incendiary comments. It would be a great step away from Democrats who can't message well, either.

Picking Clark would be a sign that Obama really is serious about shaking things up in D.C., not only in terms of policy but also in terms of media. Running directly counter to a recent media hissy-fit would be head and shoulders above what I have come to expect from Democrats.  

Chris Bowers :: Hope For Clark As VP?

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Hope For Clark As VP? | 27 comments
I'm no longer willing to get my hopes up (0.00 / 0)
But I'll still cross my fingers.
Ok. I'll hope for both of us. ;) (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
Not sure this would shake anything up (0.00 / 0)
Yes, this selection would show Obama didn't care about the "hissy fit." But wouldn't the media just run with the theme that Obama was afraid he needed more military credentials?

I like Clark, but I honestly don't see this as such an unconventional, anti-punditry, shaking-up type of move.

But now that Edwards is out of the way (4.00 / 1)
I think that we could agree Clark is a more exciting choice than Sebelius, Kaine, Biden, or Bayh, right?

Actually Clark was my third pick after Edwards (which obviously has changed) and Mark Warner (who released the most Sherman or Sherman statements), so I would be very happy with Clark as VP.

[ Parent ]
Yes, (0.00 / 0)
I can agree with that!
[ Parent ]
Well .. in some ways .. (4.00 / 3)
Sebelius would be more exciting .. in that it would cause people like Howard Wolfson to internally cum bust .. and they'd be on the TV with steam coming out their ears(like the old carroons)
[ Parent ]
To pick a fighter who won't back down against the nontroversy goons (4.00 / 1)
would be something of a shakeup, at least from Democratic standards.
[ Parent ]
I like the idea of Clark... (4.00 / 2)

 ...more than I like Clark himself. Just a personal thing. That said, I'd much prefer Clark over the other choices being floated around.

    Don't worry about the media spin -- if Obama picks ANYBODY to the left of Harold Ford, the media WILL spin it as something negative for him. That's a silly reason to not pick Clark.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
Funny, I'm exactly the opposite (0.00 / 0)
I don't like the idea of Clark -- going with a general -- but love Clark himself.
[ Parent ]
Rumors (4.00 / 1)
I haven't seen Clark mentioned in any of the lists of who is being intensely vetted.

Not that it means anything. Who knows how much those lists are worth? I'm just saying, it would run contrary to what news there has been of the VP selection process.

Well... (0.00 / 0)
Who hasn't been floated as a potential VP pick at this point, either by the campaign itself or some other high-profile Dem? This has been one great big exercise in media manipulation by the Obama campaign and I wouldn't place any weight on those lists being worth the paper they were leaked on.

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra
[ Parent ]
Maybe (0.00 / 0)
Maybe it's all be one great exercise in media manipulation by the Obama campaign. Or maybe things are exactly what they appear, and it will be either Bayh, Dodd, or Sibelius.

We'll see.

[ Parent ]
That's right (0.00 / 0)
Thanks to the tight control of the Obama campaign, the short list gets longer every day.
[ Parent ]
The real issue (4.00 / 4)
If Obama picks Clark, will he be willing to fight against the inevitable blow back from Republicans and the media? If he is, then Clark is a great choice. If he's going leave Clark out there to twist in the wind by issuing more of these weak reactive/defensive responses, then he's just going to get kicked around for a few more news cycles. In other words, I only want Clark if it means Obama will finally step up his game and be more partisan, otherwise the campaign's messaging will become even more muddled, as Clark will attack and Obama will backtrack. Not a good scenario.
I don't think Obama should be more partisan (0.00 / 0)
I think he should fight back stronger. Post-partisan doesn't mean, to me at least, that you back down from fights. It means you choose your issues based on ideology and reason rather than partisanship.
[ Parent ]
Postpartisanship is sophistry (4.00 / 1)
Seeing as the Democratic and Republican parties serve as the sites where political movements, interest groups and entrepreneurs translate their agendas into concrete policies that are then implemented through legislative and executive institutions, the notion of postpartisanship in politics is a contradiction in terms.  

Indeed, partisanship is constitutive of politics in the US, an inescapable fact.  Anyone who wants to transcend the reality of parties should take Al Gore's current efforts to rehabilitate fossil fuel ghouls like Newt Gingrich as a cautionary tale.  It seems that the former VP would let rightist extremists have their cake and eat it after all.    

[ Parent ]
I think Obama's definition of post-partisanship (0.00 / 0)
(and mine) are much more modest and narrow by nature. I doubt that the idea that we're going to get beyond parties being the vehicles of political action is taken seriously by anyone. I think Obama's talking about the excesses of partisanship. I don't think it has to be an all or nothing deal.

I think Obama's post-partisanship is a function of his personal ideological temperament -- because he is very willing to listen to both sides of any particular issue and choose sides based on its merits rather than what his party leaders need. He's willing to moderate his opinion and work with folks from the other party. Many of us here may not like it but it's certainly possible. It will result in occasional (maybe more than occasional) political losses for the reasons you state but we don't really know that yet.

I expect the answer to breaking conservative rule and/or gridlock will be some combination, which I think Obama is uniquely positioned to achieve: his post-partisanship shtick, among other factors, creates a positive effect on congressional races, which gives us a bigger partisan edge. But even with 60 seats in the Senate (not counting Lieberman) we're not going to have enough votes to pass liberal legislation consistently in a hyper-partisan climate with more conservative Dems ready to defect than moderate Republicans.

But the kind of broadly popular common sense, nuts and bolts legislation that Obama has shown a taste for stands a great chance of passing. And I'll take that anyday given the past 8 years.

[ Parent ]
Lacks clarity and authority (4.00 / 1)
My beef with the idea of postpartisanship is twofold.  On one hand, it's too vague to be of use for sharp, incisive political analysis.  For example, what do you mean by "excesses of partisanship?"  Are you referring to certain standards of etiquette in engaging political foes, an uncompromising commitment to the pursuit of specific policy ends at any cost, the use of political issues as popular wedges to divide the electorate, etc.?  

People on the left need to talk about politics in a way that helps further our goals in concrete ways.  To do so, we need to understand the way that complex, powerful institutions like parties work rather than attempting to transcend them through rhetoric.  

Another big problem with postpartisanship is the belief that a leftist agenda is viable in the US without hard-fought, bare-knuckles conflict.  By talking of Obama being willing to "moderate his opinion and work with folks from the other party," do you mean to suggest that his position against retroactive immunity for telecoms and offshore oil drilling were somehow immoderate?  

That these seemingly commonsensical positions could be made to seem outside the so-called center is a function of the Democratic party's unwillingness to challenge the terrain of political contest in the US as defined by Republicans.  Over the past thirty or so years we as Democrats have abandoned by and large the strong central state liberal policies on entitlements, education and infrastructre that give us what credibility we still enjoy on domestic issues.  At the same time, we've embraced the neocon "War on Terror" paradigm and are now only fitfully attempting to extricate ourselves as a party from its insidious implications.  

Based on what you say, I think you'd agree we could use more of the right type of partisanship, and identifying what this should look like as a practical matter is no easy task.  As it suggests a retreat from conflict with an opponent bent on thoroughgoing domination of US politics (think about what Rove meant by "permanent Republican majority"), I fail to see the value added in embracing any form of postpartisanship.    

[ Parent ]
Obama is not going to make Gingrich his VP (0.00 / 0)
Obama does not want Republicans elected, he works to defeat them. He does not want Republican agndas moved forward. O bame, quite rightly say he is the same as the great majority of Americans, the great majority. He is no different in his dep beliefs from what Americans believe and that the angry lying, goading, fabrication filled destroy them at any cost including the wrecking the constitution has hurt America.

He is the middle of the road. And considering the place the the republicans and traditional media put the middle, this is a huge slip left. I am the middlke, over here where unions are good, net neutrality is protected and the war in Iraq is over. I am in the middle where destroying people because they are gay is not tolerated. I am in the middle where a windfall profits tax restores some balance to the horrendous profit taking the Oil giants are gouging out of our economy.

I really thought the post-partisan flap doodle had ended as a debating point.

Obama didnt reject Edwards as a VP, we are lucky bloggers that Obama didn't listen and act. I wanted Edwards more than most, I am disappointed, among a larger list of feelings and thoughts, but relieved in the timing.

Right now I like Gore, as the hardest working Vice President ever in History, but I am willing to accept a fair number.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
? (0.00 / 0)
Are you replying to me?  If so, I can't tell from what you say.
[ Parent ]
well argued (0.00 / 0)
To answer your question regarding FISA and drilling, I make a strong distinction between the two. No, his original FISA stance was not immoderate. I continue to disagree with his flip on that and put it in a class by itself -- a traditional Democratic triangulating cave-in, the kind of thing we are all against. He didn't exactly change his stance on oil drilling -- he remained opposed to it but was willing to allow for some of it within a larger, green package. That to me was moderate as both a verb and adjective -- he moderated his position to something, well, moderate. In fact, you might argue that he moderated his position from something very progressive and very difficult to pass to something reasonably progressive and reasonably likely to pass -- the package that he is supporting would have been unthinkably progressive until recently.

By the way, I appreciate your reasoned response. I'll think about it -- I certainly admit that the concept of post-partisanship is at least vulnerable to excessive squishiness.

[ Parent ]
Clark doesn't seem to think he will be picked (0.00 / 0)
I got an email from WesPAC a short while ago:
Dear XXXX,
A little over a month ago, following my appearance on Face the Nation, the right wing freak machine took me out of context, attacked me, and just wanted me to "hit the road."

Well, I'm here to tell you: I'm not going away.

We simply have too much to do in these final three months. We have to elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States. And we have to give him a working majority in Congress. So let's give the right wing what they asked for. I'm ready to "hit the road" and help Democrats across the country!

He goes on to ask for money so he can campaign across the country for "folks like Charlie Brown (CA-4), Eric Massa (NY-29), and Bob Tuke (TN-Sen)."

So General Clark doesn't seem to think he is going to be named or else he wouldn't be budgeting for another round of congressional candidate surrogacy, and he wouldn't be asking for a mere $25,000...a sum Obama reels in several times over with each email.  

Still, I wish it was the case that Obama would pick Clark.  


Truth over balance, progress over ideology

I think Clark would have made (0.00 / 0)
a perfect Veep for Obama and posted extensively elsewhere about that quite a while ago.  When the buzz grew loud, I was very encouraged, but then the Obama campaign threw Clark under the bus in a move that can only be construed as "not interested."  Personally, I think Clark got the message then he was not seriously going to be considered, but I'm heartened to see that he's still out there campaigning for Democrats.

I think Obama's primary (through Bill Burton) and secondary (Obama himself) responses to Clark's so-called intemperate comments were cowardly and unnecessary.  A huge disappointment.  Wes Clark remains, imho, the single best pick for Veep out there.  The Obama campaign, however, has other ideas (Bayh and Kaine??) that signal Obama is every bit as conciliatory as I feared he was.  I was no Clinton supporter, by any means, but my fervor for Obama can be described as tepid at best.  Moves like tossing Clark under the bus only reinforced my discomfort.  

It's never too late to take a stand after it's too late. ~~Stephen Colbert

Don't know who he should pick (0.00 / 0)
-- I'm frankly not that smart or shrewd. And, it is always easier to say who shouldn't be picked than who should. Clark might well be  a good choice. I've always liked him.

But whoever Obama chooses, it should be for the right reasons, not because we want to "stick it" to clueless media, pundits or surrogates.

My criteria: the most progressive person who will demonstrably help Obama win.

John McCain doesn't care about Vets.


i don't celebrate xmas (0.00 / 0)
but if obama picks clark as his running mate it will seem like that time of year very early to me, c'mon obama make my day.  
Lets Face it (0.00 / 0)
General is a much more powerful qualifier then Senator or Governor to those voters still on the fence.  
Not Just General (0.00 / 0)
"Supreme Allied Commander in Europe" is a pretty nifty former title, too. I'm not normally a fan of militarism or of military generals making a transition into politics. That said, Clark has proven himself as a decent person and a good political figure. I'd be satisfied with him.

Even so, my gut feeling is that it won't be him. But I have a really bad track record on predicting things.

[ Parent ]
Hope For Clark As VP? | 27 comments
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