To further the cause of party unity before things get too ugly I'd like to open up a space for people to praise the candidate they aren't supporting. Briefly, before I begin, let me say I'm a Deanie and not a Clarkie for two reasons: The spending caps and Dean's campaign experience which I think is more important than Clark's war experience. Also, Howard got me first and I have loyalty issues.
That said, here's what I like about Wes Clark:
-He's a raging liberal. Gay rights, health care, repealing tax cuts. As far as I can tell the major difference between Clark and Dean's domestic policy is that Clark's an old-school tax-and-spend, defecits-be-damned, $100 billion on jobs type of liberal.
-He's really good looking and sounding. Especially in that American Son video. Damn. The thought of that being played at the convention gives me goose bumps. Also, he's fresh. The thought of Gephardt or Lieberman or Kerry trotting themselves out again as the face of the Party is scary to me. The Democrats need someone people haven't seen a million times before. We almost need to think of ourselves as a third party like that, coming out of nowhere to upset the Repug domination.
-He's run a positive campaign so far. I know some other people can cite examples to the contrary but compared to the other guys, he's done a fine job of staying on message and taking it to Bush instead of other Democrats. As John Edwards has proved, that's not necessarily enough to attract a lot of people, but it doesn't turn off people too much. Or turn them against you.
May the best campaign win. And may we all be ready and willing to actively and wholeheartedly support whoever does win.
[Note: Supporters of other candidates can feel free to praise Clark or Dean or both. When your guy gets into a position to take the nom, I'll do a new entry for disappointed Deanies and Clarkies to praise him.]