WES CLARK FOR PRESIDENT!….Via email, Mark Kleiman is puzzled by yesterday’s post about Wesley Clark, in which I said I wasn’t quite ready to support him yet:
It’s one thing to pick a candidate in the primaries on the basis of how well he’ll do in the general. But (unless you’re a politician or an interest group head who needs to be with the winner) why pick a primary candidate on the basis of how well you think he will do? Why not just pick your guy, and then pick someone else if he falls apart? I think Clark will continue to struggle with the mechanics of campaigning. I also think he’s by far the strongest candidate for November.
Well, hell, when he’s right, he’s right. For a variety of reasons having to do with both his fitness for office and his electability, I think Clark is the best candidate out there ? something I’ll explain at greater length in a future post. I’ll vote for whoever gets the nomination, but I hope it’s Clark.
And if he craters for some reason, then Mark’s right: I’ll line up behind someone else. But I don’t think he will: his bobbles so far have actually been pretty minor, magnified mainly by the hyper-scrutiny of the blogosphere. The Republican attacks on his “waffling” have been pretty pathetic, really, and his staffing problems, although quite real, are probably not that serious this early in the game.
So that’s it: Clark’s my man. That’s one more vote in the always critical California primary for you, General!
(And now that I’ve made up my mind does that mean you can’t trust anything else I ever say about the guy? I guess we’ll see, won’t we?)
