Reply #92: At first, it was the uniform...then, it was much, much more...

[ICantBelieve]

I first fell for Clark while watching him on CNN during the start of the Iraq War. We flipped channels and I'd noticed that Clark was the only "old military guy" who seemed to not be gung-ho about the war. Then, one day, the host of the show asked him if the rumor was true that he was running for President. Clark gave his rule-nothing-out type answer. I thought, "How odd, why would someone challenge Bush in the primaries?" Then it occurred to both my husband and I simultaneously--he's a Democrat!!! I got up and did a happy dance. We could actually BEAT Bush with a retired 4-star general!

Time passed... I contributed a little money to the DraftClark movement and signed a petition... I remember discussing it with my friends and thinking, "I really like Dean, but I think only Clark could beat Bush." For that reason, I picked Clark.

Well, then I went to clark04.com and started reading up on him. I think the first thing I read was his GLBT statement--because I was worried what a military guy would say--where he said that "Don't ask, Don't tell" should be abolished... because it didn't allow people to serve as who they were. HOLY sh*t!!! This guy isn't just a Democrat! He's a liberal, no, wait, he's a LIBERAL!!! OMG! How could the Democrats get so lucky? Here we have a retired 4-star general, who won the last war, and he's a freakin' LIBERAL!

At that point, I joined his website and the Clark Community Network with the handle icantbelieveimvotingforageneral. I sent a note to all my fellow Democratic friends, including my siblings, saying that I'd decided to support Clark in the primaries. My brother emailed back that because of my note, he'd decided to look into Clark and now he couldn't stop reading about him; he too was "addicted" to Wes. My sister emailed back and asked why I'd chosen Clark. I told her, "He's smart. I'm smart (editorial note--I am pretty smart, but for some reason, my sister thinks I'm REALLY smart). He's smarter. I think it would be AWESOME to have a President who's smart enough and experienced enough and LIBERAL enough that I don't have to worry that he's doing the righ things."

I was still a bit worried though. Afterall, I couldn't believe I was voting for a general. Each and every time I thought "Hmm... here's a litmus test of mine that Clark might not pass," he surprised me by being LIBERAL. In fact, the more I got to know him, the more I liked him, the more I realized that he was a better LIBERAL than I was. He wasn't further left than me or further down than me (on the two axis scale); he wasn't MORE liberal than me. He was a BETTER liberal than me. He actually BELIEVED IN GOD and was for a clear separation of church and state. He actually LIKED GUNS and was for gun control. He actually made his career out of the military and was for peace. Being a liberal for me was easy. It fits my lifestyle. I'm a typical liberal--athiest, terrified of guns, peacenik. But Clark, he's none of those things, and yet, he's all of the things liberals are.

See, that's when I learned that being liberal means being open-minded. It means being open-minded enough to see the other side and adapt intellectually to what's important and what's not. It's about being able to fight for your interests without being stuck to your positions. I still keep "ICantBelieve" around because it really was a funny handle; however, I no longer have any trouble with the fact that I'm supporting a general. In fact, I now wonder how I could have been so closed-minded to think that all military people were hawks and conservatives.

Sometimes people think we Clarkies are a cult or are cliqueish. It's not true. We just see our candidate as more than someone to get elected. He's a leader and a teacher. Whether he runs in 08 or not, whether WesPAC takes off this year as we expect it to or not, whether Wes Clark drops off the face of the earth tomorrow (God forbid!) or not, and I'd still be a much BETTER liberal for having known him.