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Edited on Wed Dec-14-05 04:02 AM by last_texas_dem
In an earlier thread about Hillary vs. McCain I stated that, although I truly hate to feel this way, at this point in time* (meaning, if the election were held today) I do not know of a Democrat who I think could beat McCain. He has done too good a job, enabled by legions of media brownnosers, of making middle America think he is some sort of straight-shooting "maverick" whose views are basically middle of the road and in line with the "mainstream."
McCain's voting record throughout his career and his right-wing turn since getting his ass handed to him by Rove and the religious right crazies when he first ran for Pres. in '00 should have demonstrated otherwise to most of America, but the truth has yet to sink in. And, considering the way that Shrub was able to sell himself as a "compassionate conservative" to a strong plurality of Americans back in '00, simply by calling himself one, I don't have all that much faith in the bullshit detecting abilities of most Americans. American Independents, the types who consider themselves to be the most politically intelligent but who generally have the least political knowledge as a group, support McCain so strongly that if he gets the Repug nomination it will be a tough uphill battle for whoever the Democratic candidate is.
However, this isn't to say that there aren't factors that could cause McCain's defeat if he were to make it through the Repug primaries and become their candidate. (My hope is that the religious right once again doesn't consider him "pure" enough and brings him down. I used to have a higher level of respect for McCain than for most Republican politicians, based not on believing that he were some sort of "maverick" but based on thinking he was a basically, decent person, unlike his other party "leaders." His shameless sucking-up to Shrub in '04 showed me the naked opportunist he is, and changed my opinion of him from then on.) I believe that the Dems could pick a candidate with certain attributes that could severely weaken McCain's strengths and contest him on his weaknesses.
From the information I have seen, Hillary would be about the worst candidate the Democrats could pick. She basically does appeal to Democrats, even if current polls of candidate preferences aren't even worth considering since they are based almost totally on name recognition; remember how Lieberman led in the some of the earliest polls for '04? However, there are candidates who would perform more strongly among Democrats; despite her portrayal by the right-wing and the media as being a liberal extremist, there are many liberals unhappy with Hillary. But what's of even bigger importance in this consideration is the fact that she starts out with very weak numbers among independents, the group who generally decide these elections. For a Democratic candidate to win, they have to get significant support from Independents, probably a majority of them, to combat the strength of the Repugs' wingnut and fundy base. Consider the '04 election (not taking voter fraud into account): Kerry won most of the Democratic base and even performed more strongly than Shrub among Independents and even still did not prevail in the election. Hillary would begin with a major deficit among Independents vs. McCain, and I highly doubt (except perhaps with some New York voters) she would be able to appeal all that significantly to Republicans to be able to combat her weakness with Independents!
(This is all assuming that Hillary is even planning on running, as I have yet to see any real indication of this, besides right-wing and media speculation. I am giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming isn't even seriously considering it. The thing is, I basically like Hillary Clinton. I recently took a test on this site that showed she is the Senator whose views mine are the most compatible with, in fact! I just believe that it would be nearly impossible for the Democrats to win with Hillary Clinton as our Presidential candidate in 2008.)
Regarding Clark, I think he would be a strong pick, particularly against McCain, in several ways. Namely, his military experience and his demeanor/basic appeal to people as a person. These are two of McCain's strongest suits that Clark would definitely be able to contest. My assumption is that he would be able to appeal to Independents more effectively than many other possible Democratic candidates, although I have no statistics to back this up. Regarding appeal, he didn't last as long as I expected in the primaries last year, but it should be taken into consideration that he entered pretty late, relative to the other candidates, which likely weakened his chances of building as strong of a base. Another of his strengths that is comparable to McCain is that he is basically ideologically liberal but could appeal strongly to Independents, just as McCain is basically ideologically conservative but appeals to Independents. Of course this is speculation years before either of the two's possible candidacies, but I am considering my past assessments of them.
Clark's major weakness would be noted as his lack of political experience, but Repugs pointing this out wouldn't be so strong if their main candidate is an alleged maverick who plays himself as an outsider. Recent Presidential contests have shown general support for the candidate who runs against Washington.
So yes, I think there are several reasons that Wesley Clark would be a strong pick to run against John McCain should McCain (unfortunately) end up as the Repugs' candidate. He wasn't my preferred candidate in '04 and isn't currently my top pick for '08, but I do think he's a strong candidate and would welcome him running again if he were to decide to, and would strongly back him if he ended up our candidate.
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