Vote for me! I'm not a Republican!

I used to believe that candidates with a positive message tended to be preferred over candidates with a message that boils down to "I'm not the other guy(s)"

There is an AP-sourced article that is doing the rounds here on DU, in a few topics that focus on the by now well-known and just as silly charge that Wes Clark is a "closet Republican." That AP article has an interesting end:

The Dean campaign is distributing fliers in New Hampshire proclaiming, ``Wesley Clark: Republican,'' and a man wearing a Reagan mask has shown up at Clark appearances to taunt the candidate.

Yesterday evening I posted this tongue in cheek commentary. The more I think about this peculiar variety of partisan slash-and-burn tactics, the more I realize that my irony was, in effect, quite on the mark:

• This type of attempts at suggesting, directly or indirectly, that Clark is an ex Republican who switched just before announcing his candidacy actually prompts another question: what Democratic value exactly is served by knowingly and falsely equaling past exercises of the Constitutional right to vote with present Republican party affiliation?
  <...>
  Instead of slamming Clark on an unsubstantiated insinuation, they should be silently appreciative of an outstanding Democratic exception, who has an excellent chance of delivering national security as a Democratic stronghold, as it was in the past until the years of Kennedy.
  
  Maybe I should simplify even further to prove my point: it isn't exactly a compelling proposition for the Dean campaign to run with the slogan: "Vote for me! I'm not Republican!" It's a proposition that only political professionals can dream up!
  
  Since I have read a little bit on Howard Dean's campaign proposals, I know that there is more than enough decent "own" Dean campaign material around to promote, instead of getting mired in ghost busting. That was really just a movie, you know.

If you don't have a substantive point to make on a candidate's positions and proposals, get on with a positive message of your own, instead.

It wouldn't be too far fetched to devise an adapted inversion of that "closet Republican" thingie. Much of Howard Dean's appeal (certainly in the beginning of his campaign) stemmed from his adamant and stern (some would say "angry") opposition to Bush. So, it might be entertaining to imagine a few Clark campaigners annoying Dean supporters with an equally nonsensical counter message: "Opposite attraction: Dean really loves Bush!" Fortunately for those imaginary victims, Clark appeals to a more mature audience.

Seriously, as much as I'll avoid landing on or departing from a certain airport in Washington, named after a famous Alzheimer patient, I don't think it's politically wise or smart to wield the word "Reagan" as a string of garlic.

Believe it or not, it's really 2004, and not 1980 or 1984 anymore.

Seriously, as much as I'll avoid landing on or departing from a certain airport in Washington, named after a famous Alzheimer patient, I don't think it's politically wise or smart to wield the word "Reagan" as a string of garlic.

Especially this part....it's gonna be hard painting Reagan as a boogieman when he is stricken with a horrible disease like Alzheimers.

CNN (I think) a week or so ago? He's clearly a staunch liberal, obviously loves his father, and seems to believe what a lot of us suspected at the time: that his father was already in the early stages of Alzheimers while he was president. He also seems to think that a lot of the skullduggery of the Reagan years was done without Reagan's knowledge. Well, he would think that, wouldn't he? And who knows, he may be right.

What really got me out of my chair and whooping with joy, though, was his response to the interviewer's mention of Dubya. Ron Jr. sneered, "My father is a man. George Bush isn't fit to carry his gym socks."


:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Love ya Ron Jr!
You on DU???

Somebody should tell the Reagan mask that he was a liberal New Deal Democrat, who voted for FDR and Harry Truman 5 times. No conservative questions his credentials. Believe it or not a big majority of Americans voted for Nixon in 1972 and 1984, including my grandmother, who voted for Dukakis in 1988 and hasn't voted Republican since.

and running for president? Clark is welcome to the party, welcome to vote for Democratic candidates but he lacks the credentials to claim the top spot on the Democratic ticket. The man has only been a Democrat since October. We wouldn't even be having this discussion if Rove had returned his calls or he if didn't have a nice little uniform with bright shiny medals. He has no experience that is transferable to the presidency. Quite the opposite, the experience that he does have will be detrimental to an office in a civilian government. I have yet to see anyone post anything that suggests that Clark , prior to his announcement to run for president , had anything but right leaning , hawkish tendencies. Where are those words of praise for Democratic administrations? Were there any before his announcement? Clark has done a complete about face in the last couple of years. How could a man who was so very wrong before suddenly be trusted with the democratic nomination?

BTW, Reagan had YEARS in the Republican party before receiving the nomination. Clark has only a few months. Desperation is going to kill our party from the inside.

a Republican if Karl Rove had returned his calls, and the idiot Repubs, trying to expose him as a liar, wound up proving just the opposite.

They scoured Rove's phone records and found no calls from Clark, so they announced triumphantly that he was lying. Of course what the nonexistence of the phone records really proved was that he was joking , just as he said all along.

Its sad when DU users use RNC talking points to attack Clark.

HE wasn't in poltics, he couldn't do what you wanted him to do. This guy is smart and can win, ABB, i'm sick of liberal elitists. There is no use for a politician who can’t win, they should go write a book and not waste the party's money.

he lacks the credentials to claim the top spot on the Democratic ticket

Just because he voted Republican 20 years ago. Just what credentials are legally required to run for President in America? By whose standards?

IMO Clark has proven himself beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I've yet to see any of the other candidates either admit or deny ever voting Republican.


And then there were none!
” JAFO”

I dont think hes anything. I think hes a general and probably an independant. That being said i dont think anything that comes out of his mouth other than things military hasnt been spoonfed to him by the political hacks behind him. He is a construct made for our viewing pleasure when it comes to his stances. I have watched him speak time and again and unless its something military all you get from him is I think america is a great country and we should be great again!

I know he has all these wonderfull policy papers on his website but I could have writen those or KKKarl rove could have for all we know. I have seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest they come from clark himself, in fact after watching him speak many times I am inclined to believe he couldnt tell you whats in any of those papers.

His refusal to declare for months what party he was afiliated with sticks in the back of my head and nags me to no end. If he was a democrat and proud of it he wouldnt have played the guess what I game all those months.

In the end though I really dopnt care if he is a dem republican or martian, Its the fact that other than military conversations he has absolutely nothing to say besides broad generalities. I think hes a fake. I think he is alll show and no go unless we need to plan a war he seems to have no conviction whatsoever.

Ill vote for him in a new york minute over bush but thats where it ends for me. I think if we get wes as president we get the great unknown. There is nothing to point to to show his past leanings or where he might go once he gets the presidency. I would rather holly joe than wes at least we know what we are getting with joe.

Candidates playing the type of childish games that Dean has been playing (crying for mommy about all the criticism he's taken and calling Wes names) tend to lose their support quickly.

newspaper article?

Dean has complained that Clark voted for Republican Presidents Nixon and Reagan - assertions Clark does not deny.

Of course he doesn't "deny" it--he's the one who said it in the first place. You'd think, from the way this is worded, that Clark was claiming to have voted for Dems all along and someone had outed him as a liar.

Voting is private. He could have lied about his voting record and no one would ever have been the wiser. How anyone can find something sinister and underhanded in Wes Clark's candor is beyond me.

He should talk about it...

Votes for Nixon or Reagan did not take place in a vacuum.

They were CHOICEs.

Choices to vote for more war in Vietnam, choices to vote against progress in civil rights, women's rights, economic and social justice.

For those of us who foiught hard for those causes, the fact that clark was the other side for so many years is a bit disturbing.

It is not like he was a kid during those days.

He is reponsible for his choices then as well as now.

He should explain himself.

Listen. Clark’s centrist history is a good thing! The RNC is still helped by Reagan Democrats, Hopefully Clark can bring us Clark Republicans. Who cares who votes for whom, as long as we win in the end!

He is actively working to get rid of Bush. There will always be liberals who find cross overs scary, but its the cross over centrists who will get the votes!

Why should he explain himself again? Listen, hes said this quite a few times, look it up.

on TV, during a tour in NH - I posted a link to that fragment (I believe it was PBS or C-SPAN) where he answers and speaks directly about that.

My abbreviated version, served from memory: "it was the Cold War, as a career military I voted for who I thought was strong on national security, I could have been wrong there, but that's what I did, and after getting out of the military I looked around and saw that priorities lie elsewhere, especially in domestic issues, then I looked closely at Clinton's policy, registered as Democrat and decided to run."

Sorta, but that's the gist of it.