While the media has played up Democratic party insiders' involvement in the Clark camp, among activists on the ground the Clark candidacy is widely viewed as a grass-roots phenomenon like Dean's, the result of the Internet-organized Draft Clark movement. Even if Clark has been sent to thwart their man, Dean's followers like and respect him as a fellow soldier in the war on Bush.
"I think it's a very positive development," said Betsy Kane, an attorney and Dean volunteer from Raleigh, N.C., of Clark's entry. "I think he brings a number of characteristics to the table that are needed right now. His military experience is important ... I don't really see him as a threat to Dean. If there's people power behind all the Democratic candidates, eventually one of them is going to rise to the top."
Waving goodbye to Clark supporters as she headed off to watch the debate, Ruth Bonnet, a 41-year old writer and Dean campaign volunteer from the Upper West Side, said, "Between the Dean people and the Clark people there's a lot of friendliness." Adds her friend Jordan Auslander, a bearded genealogist and fellow Dean supporter, "It helps to have someone with the moral authority of Clark talking about the fiasco in Iraq. I like Dean. I'm going to support both of them."
This equanimity toward Clark is partly a result of the Democratic unity engendered by George Bush. For months now, Dean has been careful to focus his attacks on the president, and his followers' ire is similarly targeted. That may change, says John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor who studies elections.
So far, says Geer, Clark's entry has hurt other Democrats more than Dean. "It seems to me what Clark really did was make it harder for someone like a [Joe] Lieberman or a [Bob] Graham or a [Dick] Gephardt to break through. It makes it more likely for it just to be a three-person race" between Dean, Clark and Kerry, he says.
Once the field shrinks, the rhetoric will likely get uglier. "Clark and Dean may be the last two standing, and then the gloves will come off," Geer says. "They're both after a pretty big prize. When that happens, it might not be so easy for their respective supporters to chant together."
Until then, though, Dean has little to gain by lashing out against anyone but Bush, and his supporters are too inspired and optimistic to harbor enmity for other Democrats.
At a short pre-debate rally Thursday, Dean addressed a throng crammed onto a hot patch of sidewalk abutting City Hall Park, laying out an analysis of the country's current predicament that resonates deeply with the liberal faithful.
"Over the last 10 years, our democracy has been undermined by a small group of right-wing ideologues," he said, counting off the now-familiar litany of conservative power grabs -- impeachment, the 2000 election, Texas redistricting, the California recall. "Our democracy is under assault by people who literally believe they have the God-given right to run this country no matter what we say." He continued, saying, "The flag of the United States does not belong to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz ... John Ashcroft is going around the country defending the PATRIOT Act. That does not make him a patriot."
EL - Like many Dean supporters, Clark is my second choice.
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