Clark shifts gear, courts South votes

Clark shifts gear, courts South votes
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 12/30/2003

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- He has given stump speeches across New Hampshire, talked ad infinitum on television. But it wasn't until he stood before the Young Democrats of Columbia, S.C., that retired Army General Wesley K. Clark's voice took on a new quality: a slight but unmistakable twang.

He entered the race, Clark told the group last week, "because I was so darn mad at George W. Bush." He knew about elections in foreign countries because "I was in charge of supporting 'em and making 'em work." It might have been a prelude to a Southern-fried Clark on display early this week, during his campaign's whirlwind "True Grits" tour of eight Southern states yesterday and today.

The trip represents a shift in approach for Clark, who is still widely associated with his foreign policy credentials, campaigns with Rhodes Scholar elocution, and repeatedly professes his love for New Hampshire. Clark must perform well in the Granite State primary on Jan. 27, but he also needs a strong showing a week later on Feb. 3, when seven states hold elections, perhaps none of them more prominent than South Carolina.

It is in South Carolina, in the first Southern primary -- in a state that proved a crucial testing ground in 2000 -- that several candidates hope to emerge as the best alternative to Yankee-bred Howard Dean. And it is on this week's Southern swing, which ends pointedly in South Carolina today, that Clark hopes to promote some new campaign themes. One is a direct appeal to black voters, who aren't present in large numbers in New Hampshire, but are expected to make up about 40 percent of South Carolina's primary voters. Another is a display of his Arkansas roots, though Clark's Little Rock lilt is still a far cry from a deep Southern drawl.

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