Wes Clark Got 2 Steps Ahead of the Netroots

[Tom Rinaldo]

General Clark went well beyond the mainstream Democratic Party in preemptively positioning himself, and those who stand with him, to confront a growing threat to peace, and also to our Party. For those who picked up on Clark’s stance early the lag between him sounding an alarm and more people hearing it has been hard to accept, but as hard as it’s been for the netroots to take that danger in, compared to the institutional Democratic Party they have been relatively quick to respond.

The most obvious example now concerns Iran and the urgent need to counter the neocon strategic agenda for war and the propaganda campaign that boosts it. Of course General Clark has been talking about the need to head off the potentially catastrophic pending conflict between the U.S. and Iran for almost four years now, and after repeated increasingly urgent interview warnings and statements, he and VoteVets.org launched their public StopIranWar.com petition and letter writing campaign back in February of this year. Most of it went right over the heads of many in the netroots at the time. Anti-war activists remained pre-occupied with getting the U.S. out of Iraq, and many were skeptical that the Bush Administration could even think of initiating new military aggression while physically and mentally bogged down in Iraq.

Some who did pay attention to what StopIranWar.com attempted were critical that the statements issued by it were not more pointed in their attacks on Bush and stronger in their defense of Iran's position. Too few saw what Clark already knew, that the public simply would not buy a white washing of Iran's role in the escalation of tensions between our nations, but some straight talk about how U.S. policies toward Iran were contributing to increasing dangers would be a welcome reality based relief for many voters. As StopIranWar.com got rolling most anti-war activists continued to rail against Congressional Democrats for not doing more to get our troops out of Iraq quicker, while barely noticing when the House Democratic Causes quietly quashed an effort to force President Bush to seek Congressional approval before launching any attacks on Iran, and Senate Democrats derailed an effort by Senator Webb to do the same.

It's about six months later now and many in the netroots are finally getting alarmed about the real possibility of another war erupting while George Bush is still in office. Better late than never? Certainly, but is it now too late for the netroots to meaningfully contribute to heading off the next war? Hopefully not, but I honestly do not know for sure.

On a far less urgent front I now notice increasing discussion on Democratic oriented netroots web sites about whether or not our current leading candidates for President have enough experience under their belts, especially concerning national security, to convince voters to vote for them over their opponents. In some cases that discussion centers on primary voters, in others on the General Election in 2008. Activists are finally starting to notice that, slim as her credentials may be, Hillary Clinton has been making real hay out of claiming to be the most seasoned candidate of those currently ranked in the top tier of Democratic candidates.

To this day not enough Democrats seem to be asking themselves why, with the National Republican Party increasingly discredited and seemingly in complete collapse, Rudy Giuliani - he who wears 9/11 as a cape, continues to poll competitively well against Democratic potential candidates in head to head match ups. Still, increasing numbers of netroots activists are starting to wake up to how much of a gift Jon Soltz and VoteVets.org have been to the Democratic Party, advancing as they do a truly progressive agenda on military natters. Of course General Clark had a leading role in VoteVet.org from its inception.

It remains my opinion that a Wes Clark entry into the Presidential race, even at this relatively late date, would be a godsend to the Democratic Party but mostly to our nation. I honestly feel that his message is potentially powerful enough, and his intellectual and moral stature is strong enough, to propel the General into the thick of the nomination race within two months of his entry. But failing that I wonder if there is any chance that the General would consider making a new effort to reinvigorate the StopIranWar.com campaign. It seems to me that the netroots are finally waking up to the reality of that pending war, and they might now be ready to take that ball and run with it, given strong leadership and the right tools. I think we, and I say “we” now because I am a part of the netroots, have just about caught up to where General Clark was back in February.