And so the campaign sparked by a wildfire draft movement was extinguished just as quickly by Kerry’s momentum. Tuesday night, with tears welling in his eyes, Clark stepped out onto a Memphis stage to thank supporters in the state where he’d stumped 16 hours a day for more than a week–and still lost to the front runner.
In the end, Clark never won his game of catch-up. He’d entered the race just a few months ago, and while other candidates were honing their message, he was testing ideas and pleading for votes. (Even his advance staff couldn’t stay ahead: on the night of the Virginia and Tennessee primaries, they tried to gather for a drink at a local blues club, only to find Kerry’s victory party already in full swing.) With no political experience, Clark too quickly ran out of time and money to reach voters, and Tuesday night, the look on his face was clear: he had fought the good fight, but somehow, he had lost.
Initially posing as the anti-Dean, Clark struggled with an identity crisis as the Internet candidate faded from view. He tried to play on his Southern roots, but Edwards had them, too–and a better drawl. Clark also sought support from fellow veterans, but instead a “band of brothers” flocked around Kerry, a war hero and a Vietnam protester. Few people even knew that the general had once been a decorated soldier. “When we looked at the campaign, we assumed people would understand I’m a veteran,” Clark told reporters. “Maybe that was erroneous.” A few hours before the polls closed in Tennessee, Clark was still introducing himself. As the sun set and the temperature dropped, he passed out sample ballots to a few voters at a polling location. “My name is Wesley Clark,” he began, telling one woman, “If you’d vote for me, I’d be very grateful to you.” He wore a fixed smile, but a cloud of inevitability hung over the small crowd, as campaign staffers chatted and snapped pictures of each other.
Clark wasn’t much more compelling in front of large crowds. He rarely made an original quip, and was often tripped up by his stump speech, once pointing to his leg while explaining he was shot in the hand. Another time, in a packed Nashville diner, worked up by the crowd, he shouted, “I’m not an outsider–I mean, I’m not an insider. Whew. God!”
Ultimately, Clark settled on his “Washington outsider” status to contrast with the two senators. Clark attacked both on their voting records and Kerry for his apparent dismissal of the South, but always softened the blows by insisting that he really likes the senators–he really does–they’re “good men.” “I’m not attacking anybody,” he says. “I’m only trying to clarify the differences between us.” But by Monday, he had worked out only one: “You’ve got a lawyer, you’ve got a front runner and you’ve got me,” he told audiences. “I’m the underdog. I’ve always been an underdog.” Most Tennessee voters weren’t looking for an underdog. On-again, off-again coverage by the national media didn’t help Clark’s campaign either. And the candidate never seemed completely comfortable dealing with the press. On Monday, at a press conference inside a Beale Street blues joint, a campaign staffer had to twice remind Clark to face the cameras while he was speaking. Traveling reporters received so little access and information that on Tuesday night, they staked out the general’s suite demanding to know Clark’s decision.
Clark finally hit his stride on Monday night, 24 hours before dropping out of the race. Joined by his wife and son for the first time in a week, the general ad-libbed his way through his stump speech to yells and whoops from charged supporters. He attacked Bush on his handling of the Iraq war with passion–“Shame on you, Mr. President! Shame on you!”–to wild applause. But the game was already over. And Clark had run out of time.
