Glad you got a chance to go to New Hampshire. Enjoyed your report…particularly as it relates to media coverage.

The non-stop cable news coverage is becoming increasingly irrelevant. They are covering this thing like a sporting event….analyzing and over analyzing and looking for the next angle or hook.
A month ago they had annointed Dean the Democratic Party nominee. Then he crashes in Iowa…now he is the comeback kid in New Hampshire…as opposed to John Kerry who was the comeback kid in Iowa.
We are way too early in the game to declare a front runner…let alone a winner. Now Kerry is getting all the press as the “clear front runner” after getting 39% in a state that gets most of its news from the Boston media…a state where Kerry has been a known quantity for 16 years.

The Democratic Party Presidential nomination is wide open and will be for some time to come. However, the field must sort itself out before money becomes the big issue in the big dollar states.

For what its worth, my take on the results so far:

The anybody-but-Dean voters went for Kerry and Edwards in Iowa. Edwards will do better in the South…Kerry will begin to slide back into 2nd or 3rd place in the South and Midwest. Clark and Edwards will take votes away from Kerry in the next few primaries. Dean is done…he will get votes…but had his best chance to win in New Hampshire and Iowa. He will hang in..but will be the Eugene McCarthy of 2004.

Lieberman will actually outperform Dean in some of the industrial states with centrist, old line, labor and minority voters having more impact. I don’t think he will garner enough support to win…but he will show a little better in NY, Michigan, Illinois, etc.

Its going to come down to Clark, Kerry and Edwards. Interesting research out of NH showed that voters there thought the candidates with the best chance of beating Bush were Kerry and Clark in that order. Clark needs to target Kerry…portray himself as an outsider, a populist with new ideas and bold approaches not tainted by the years in the Washington establishment. Clinton, Carter, Reagan, G W Bush…all came to the White House from the State House….George H.W. Bush served two terms in the House two decades before he became President and Gerald Ford…well we know how he got to be President. So Senators have a dismal record in recent years in making it to the White House.

I put Clark in the “Governor” category…no Washington baggage, no lobbyists in his closet. He needs to appear statesmanlike. He needs to show some style and some humor. He needs to cast Kerry as a Washington insider and elitist and to cast Edwards as a nice young man with good ideas who is not yet ready to go head to head with world leaders.

Clark cannot keep telling everyone what a good candidate he is. He has to have some message of hope and some plan for the future. He is the right man for the job, but he should not keep acting like he is applying for the job. Yes, his resume is important, but more important is his vision, his leadership abilities (shown, not talked about) and his connection with and concern for regular folks.

Clark needs a media campaign in which people who know him and like him speak up and convince the undecided that Wes Clark is indeed the right man at the right time. He is the guy who can replace Bush without dividing the country or weakening our defenses. He is the guy who can restore the World’s respect for us as a bastion of democracy, a beacon to the world…not a bully running roughshod over third rate countries with phantom arsenals.

Clark is a little stiff. He lacks the slick responses that come from years dealing with the press and working the rubber chicken circuit. He can turn this to advantage though by making these minor flaws a virtue. He’s not a slick, packaged Madison Avenue political candidate. He’s a sincere, committed guy with a vision. He’s Jesse Ventura with brains. He’s the real hero who has come to our rescue, not the Hollywood version who won in California. He is John McCain –Democrat. He is the sane Ross Perot.

It’s a long time before the fat lady sings. Clark can do it if he can emerge from the pack and sharpen his image and his message. The lemmings in the media are begging for it. By Thursday the Kerry story will be old hat. By next Wednesday, they will be spinning off in a whole new direction. The next batch of headlines are going to be Clark/Edwards…Edwards/Clark. How long that will last is up to Wesley Clark