lander, Gephardt probably will take Iowa, but nothing else. Actually that would be idea for Clark because Dean is the serious competition. Clark has no chance in Iowa. Clark will bank on doing better state by state leading up to Super Tuesday in the South where he can win big.
As for why he waited I think it was a multitude of reasons. First, this wasn't a grand plan of his for years. He ay have given it some thought before this year but I don't think he seriously considered it before April/May of this year when the DraftClark movements took off. Without those he would not have run. By then he had to do the background work to make sure he could get the support and organization. He also had to do some seling with his wife who was reluctant at first. I don't necessarily think it was purposeful to wait though I think it could end up being perfect timing. If he had entered early he may not have picked up a lot of early support and the campaign would have stagnated like most of the others. Instead, he let the others meander along, have everyone say how weak the field is, how iffy a Dean chance would be and have poeple claoring for the anti-Dean. He now rides in just as people start paying attention and he's getting a ton of media attention as the new guy and a breath of frsh air. If it was startegy I think it was a good one. He as done a good deal of background work and has an all-star cadt working with him. An ex-director of Kerr's campaign has joined and another might join soon. He has 30-40 members of Congress lined up to support him. That is the most remarkable thing here IMO. Only Gephardt has more, and of course he's been in Congress for a long time.
Yeah Clark is #2 by default because he should have started ahead of Dean but he's let him take the spotlight. All the candidates are generally seen as liberal other than Lieberman who just isn't interesting anyone. Clark is coming in as the one who can appeal to moderates, but also liberals as well -- even Michael Moore is in love with him as is Janeane Garofolo. He will have support from very liberal members of Congress. It's called broad-bases support and yes he win the 'Reagan/Southern Democrats' that Gore had trouble with and the Independents. He is ideal to take on the President because obviously the President wants run on security -- he has sure as hell can't run on the economy! And Clark trumps him on securtity so what's left. Clark is the right man at the right time in the right place.
Tu, nobody is going to stand down. As for unions, several big unions, specifically the 1.5 million emmber AFSCME (which helped elect Clinton in 91/92), delayed their endorsements specially because of Clark, they said as much. If Clark's campaign shows positive signs he will get their endorsement. He already has the endorsement of the most prominent Afircan American in Congress, Charlie Rngel from New York. He predicted that Clark would win. He will get other minority endorsements too. FWIW, Al Sharpton has spoken very favorably. I'm not sure Dean is getting any unions behind him, unless it's clear that he's going to win, does he have any yet? Gephardt has then for the most part. gain, Clark can get a very broad level of support from liberals to moderates to independents to even some Republicans. This is a good thing, a very good thing.
