I couldn't find a suitable Open Thread to post this on, and don't want to wade any further into the fiendish-flyer imbroglio, so I guess I'll have to burn another diary entry for a few slightly random pieces of Clark-supporting ephemera.
(1) Watching Aaron Brown's "Tomorrow's Papers" segment on Newsnight tonight, Brown held up tomorrow's front page of Iowa's Des Moines Register. The top story, in big letters above the fold, said something like "Clark Surge the Wild Card in Democratic Race." There's no evidence of it on the Register website yet, but it certainly seems intriguing (and, for Clark folks, encouraging) that the principal Iowa paper would give Clark such prominent play when he's not even running there. While Clark has apparently ruled out any further pre-caucus campaigning in
Iowa because of time constraints, it does allow Clark-boosters to fantasize about a stronger-than-expected non-marginal showing in Iowa. A pipedream, no doubt (though there's apparently a local "draft" drive to get Clark caucus votes), but a pleasant one. (BTW, Newsnight had a strikingly pro-Clark segment tonight, dubbing him the possessor of the "Big Mo," as they gleefully anticipated the horse race they've been craving).
(2) Here's a piece from Tennessee's Nashville City Paper, suggesting that Clark is ahead of the pack in organization there:
Of Democratic candidates vying for the party's presidential nomination, retired Gen. Wesley Clark currently appears to be focusing more on next month's Tennessee primary than any other.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who is currently considered the leading candidate in key decisions in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, hasn't focused a great deal of attention on the primary here.
Many analysts contend Clark may have a chance here despite Dean having received the endorsement of native son and former Vice President Al Gore Jr.
Although Clark, of Arkansas, has no active campaign in Iowa, he's within reach of a possible second place in New Hampshire. Many contend that he will have to succeed in the South to win, particularly in South Carolina among others on Feb. 3, and perhaps Tennessee on Feb. 10.
"Clark is making a major effort in Tennessee way beyond anything I'm seeing from other candidates," said political analyst Pat Nolan. "He needs to finish second or a respectable third in New Hampshire. But, if he doesn't break through by Feb. 3 he's out of it."
It is currently unclear, however, how important the Tennessee primary will be as it has never been held this early before.
The relevance of the Tennessee primary mostly will depend on who's still in the race by then and how different candidates have placed in other states, says Nolan.
In addition to the largest Tennessee staff, currently Clark is the only candidate with television ads up across Tennessee.
I don't know how significant this is, but it sounds hopeful, anyway.
(3) And this is completely trivial, but I've been noticing for at least the last week or two that when you go to GoogleNews, and you look over at that list of names "In The News," almost invariably Dean's name is listed but I'd say about two-thirds of the time Clark's name is on there too, even when I couldn't find any particularly notable or recent articles about Clark in the political news section (and there have been many days where Clark seemed the invisible man in the news coverage of the campaign). And I can't recall any other Dem's name--besides Gore or Hillary--showing up. I have no idea what algorithm they use to determine who or what is "in the news" but it seemed to interestingly reflect the attention that we Kossians have been paying to Clark even when the real world seemed to have been ignoring him (is this included in Chris Bowers' empirical survey stuff? :-) ). We'll see if this stays true now that Clark is actually getting some real headlines.
(4) For those interested but who have ceased watching network news, there was a very flattering biographical profile of Clark on ABC World News Tonight which will probably soon be archived in the media section of US4Clark.com (an excellent unofficial resource of Clarkiana, along with dKos-regular al Fubar's Wesley Clark Weblog), if it hasn't been already. (Actually, if you're a freakish nightowl like myself and are watching ABCs overnight WorldNewsNow, they just said they're going to rerun the profile in a few minutes.)
