I heard on NPR this morning that Clark was an ECONOMICS professor

at West Point. A Rhodes scholar, a 4 star general, a leader and no way can they touch him on the Patritism issue.

With a background in economics I suspect he has some answers on how to fix the domestic economic problems here. His resume just keeps looking better and better.

I know this problem is not Clark's doing, but there is no way America can keep its prosperous lifestyle without military domination over the oil producing countries. A really brave leader would tell Americans that they must expect to make sacrifices now and in the future, such as lifestyle and wealth.

on small and efficient electical engines, if that helps.

Alternative energy and conservation would reduce consumption by half but that is not an option for you. Wise use of our resources is for more desirable for me than raping the planet so a few super rich can get even richer. just my $.02 worth

Clark has been doing the walking....his first job out of the Army...putting together investment packages for emerging technologies. That led to Clark's interest in "Wave Crest" a hydrogen fuel cell powered bike. (see their web site) Until this run, Clark served as Chairman...I hear the team there are very "big" on Clark. iirc, the bike was to come on the 20'th now he will no longer able to help. Clark feels that these small emerging companies are our future. Clark's first degree from West Point is in engineering.

Now that Clark has accepted the nomination, I feel very sad....not because of the garbage being thrown around, but because we asked a valuable member of our community to serve and now resort to pissing on him.

Americans (and Canadians) are gross over-consumers of resources. Efficiency standards (such as CAFE) and conservation can make a difference, but I don't think we will have significant conservation until we enter a phase of deprivation. Non-renewable energy use in the United States will not decrease dramatically until the end of "cheap energy" when the world starts running out of resources. We will enter an era like America has never seen. Whole sectors of the economy will collapse and there will be mass unemployment and poverty.

A real leader would try to fashion a "soft landing" so that we don't crash. Public policy must be changed to discourage wasteful energy use--starting now. Unfortunately, the petroleum and coal companies are running our government. (How many Enron execs got jobs with Bushco?) The Energy Bill was written by energy companies (in secret).

Sorry to be such a doomsayer, but I don't see us getting out of this cleanly. I could see that when fossil resources actually crash, that the wind and hydro part of the energy pie chart will look proportionately higher. It is going to be expensive energy, though.

he has a masters in economics from Oxford and taught economics at West Point.

Then again, there are a lot of economics professors at the University of Chicago that like to tell us fairy tales, so I can't trust someone because they have a degree.

Hell doesn't Bush have an MBA from Yale? I wouldn't invest money with him :)

...and that's a GOOD start.

Apparently, he underachieved there too and there were some politics behing the scenes so that he could get his degree.

Clark is only a Democrat. Bush is a Republican. Republicans are the AMERICAN patriots. People who know the only real way to help your country is to help yourself.

And look at what happened the last time we had a Rhode scholar for a president. Eight years of peace and prosperity! Do you really want to see that kind of thing going on in America again? I just don't understand you people!

Charismatic leader as well.

I haven't picked a candidate up till now. But I've read everything I can get my hands on about them. Clark is looking very good to me. The economics background is just one more good thing. I would love to see Bush in a debate with this man. So good I'm actually thinking of donating to his campaign, even though I really can't afford it and have never donated money to a campaign before. It would be too much to hope that he'll show up in Kansas any time soon.

I like parts of Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Kucinich and Graham, but none I agreed with on everything. Plus I have doubts about some of candidates being capable of drawing from a large part of the population. I read letters on the draft clark website from all parts of the American public, Democrats, Independents, military, elderly, college students, even Republicans. I'm not convinced any of the other candidates can cross over all those lines.

I heard him this morning on Sam Donaldson's show. He said he wanted to get all Americans covered by insurance, but opposed single payer.

This is, incidentally, my position, so I've concluded Clark is an effing genius.

He explained his rationale by saying, "I've been under military health care all my career. I understand single payer." That is, he understands it; therefore he opposes it. Absolutely right.

I can't wait for all the single payer party liners around here to do a synchronized 180 if Clark gets the nomination ....

P.S. He said he'd be releasing his health plan soon. Y'all who want rationed health care with no choices better get cracking if you want to rassle Clark back onto the reservation. Next week may be too late.

Do officers have separate clinics and doctors in the military from the footsoldiers?

If Clark opposes single payer health care, I'd like to hear what his plans are - does he think it's okay for health insurance companies to ration health care so they can make bigger profits? The Journal had a good article yesterday about the insurance corporate bureaucrats that ration heath care - even as we taxpayers provide a floor through Medicare.

Yuck, Clark is starting to sound like Dean with medals.

... since he's obviously a genius (i.e. he agrees with me, at least up to this point, on this issue) is that he'll come up with some sort of premium support plan for the low income uninsured. This could be modeled on the federal employee health benefit program and would afford extensive choices to lower income people. This could also be a template that could eventually be expanded to ALL Americans, which would allow us to wean the country off employer paid health insurance (which poses a host of problems). The other easy alternative would be to extend Medicaid coverage, but I hope he's more creative than that.

He might elaborate the plan a bit with tax incentives for small businesses to broaden coverage, but that's bells and whistles. The core issue is how to insure people who are out there all by their lonesomes with no insurance.

The uninsured, while numerous, are actually a fairly discrete and well defined group. They are NOT the poor. The poor get Medicaid, which is a single payer system and, not surprisingly, not very good. I continue to be baffled why single payer enthusiasts are so hot for this model, especially when many states are cutting Medicaid benefits to meet their budget crunch. (I know, I know, actual experience must not be allowed to interfere with theory ....)

They are NOT the elderly. The elderly get Medicare, which is another single payer system with a lot of flaws, made acceptable for the substantial majority of retirees through private medigap insurance.

They are NOT, for the most part, average rank and file middle Americans, most of whom have employer paid insurance. (Also not the best way to go, IMO, but that's another story.)

The uninsured are mainly lower income working people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid. They typically work for smaller companies which don't offer health plans, which is why some small business tax incentives may be part of the fix. Throw in some of the self-employed and people who have lost their jobs whose benefits have run out. These are the people who fall through the cracks. We can easily enough fix the cracks without dumping the whole health care system into a single payer rationing scheme.

We'll see pretty soon if Clark is as smart as he's cracked up to be. This is one of the big issues -- Social Security and school choice being the others -- where the Democratic Party needs to be led out of the wilderness. I've been saying for years that one of the great political careers of this generation is there for the taking for a national Democrat who is willing to lead on these issues. Maybe Clark will be the one.

Or maybe not.

The problem is and always has been insurance companies. Insurance should be a community function anyway. I agree employer based health insurance is a bad idea in the long run.

Doctors should make profit from the health care they provide. We really need to get rid of the middlemen insurance companies who are the ones that have been driving up the costs of health care - so they make more profits. Who needs them?

health care as enlisted memebers. It all sucks.

and Officers use the same clincs and and doctors as anyone else.

Clark may want better quality health care than
the military offered, but he never experienced
not having any coverage at all as millions of
Americans have and do. Mediocre health care is
vastly superior to no coverage at all.

I like Clark, but don't agree with him on this.

He also understands this can be accomplished in a number of ways, of which single payer is one, and not the best.

He's right about that.

Died when he was only 2. Converted to Catholicism during Vietnam. Heard on NPR, military reporter from Washington Post.

for the well-turned out DC designed candidate. ;-)

He's their man...

Unless you accept that I am Al Frum, you have to reconcile your idiocy with the fact that an actuall grassroots movement drafted him based on his views/record.

while any candidate is VERY glad to have grassroots suport its the guarantee that he could get party level support in terms of getting access to big money should he be successful and the support of party big wigs (Clintons et al) and coopting the head people to create a nationwide political team (not volunteers although they love them too) that get him to say OK.

You may rightly say that you helped but don't kid yourselves into thinking it was more than that.

meetings, signatures, rallies - you're right! Activists are dirt. DLC is God and rules all - poor little bush is a little toy in their hands. Behold the wrath of DLC for it will smite ya!

The DLC just thinks Clark has a better chance to win against Bush than Dean does. So far, both Clark & Dean are 100% behind the DLC when it comes to policy. It will be hilarious watching them argue over who is more DLC :)

There's lots of different kinds of economics professors...

right.

Only at DU, man....

although I was not aware of his being an econ prof

You know, like Dean was for a year or two.

I don't know why some people are acting like teaching economics is a bad thing. Don't hate Clark because he's beautiful, LOL.

in 40 years, and Billions in tax cuts, the deficit at an all time wide and the Bush econ team totally fu*%ing clueless, I think his understanding of economic is a marvelous point.

It only enhances the other positives.