How did Wes Clark loose the huge lead the media gave him in 2004?

[LimpingLib]

I know he wasnt anywhere near in the lead in Iowa or New Hampshire , but national polls had him blowing away all candidates in the September-October 2004 time frame.

My theory is that the larger than life image the media gave him (constant glowing coverage)bursted when the debates came and agaisnt 8 other candidates he seemed small by comparison. Liebermann and many others also gave him quite a workout,so much so that Sharpton had to come to his defence in one early debate.

The huge amount of time the other candidates put into Iowa and NH guranteed Clark's early free gift, the media made juggernaut (which was fading fast), did him little good to astute and informed voters.Then all the media attention HAD to go toward those who were winning the actual polls that counted.

I ask this because it has never been adressed. The Clark legions around here just throw compliments and historical revisions in an arbitrary yet almost ad hoc manner, and thats putting it kindly since even subjectivity cant change plain history.Ill get flammed because we are supposed to believe "the media was mean to Clark" or some other oft repeated line.THAT ASIDE , I am wondering if anybody can explain what actually happened after we put aside all the flase pretenses.

This isnt to say we cant sing the praises of the man.We can still claim Clark... "Built this nation" ,... "served his country proud in the revolutionary war, Getteysburg, World War 1 , World War 2, etc.",...."a proven vote getter" , ...."the best candidate" ,... "a peace lover" ,... "the greatest defender of civil libertys ever" ,... "the REAL subject and reason Akenatens hymn was composed" ..."the sun, the moon , and the stars"... "a cub scout" , etc. All that is still fine but as for the hugh national lead he had.............

[patricia92243]

1. He lost his lead the same way Dean lost his lead. Guess??? n/t

[senseandsensibility]

3. Could it be the media?

In Clark's case, they ignored instead of bashed. Either method can be effective. But make no mistake, the media is seriously afraid of Clark.

[Clark2008]

5. Yep. After he returned from The Hague in December, even Clark

supporters were hard-pressed to find ANY news about him in the corporate media.
I live in Tennessee and was providing some news about him in early February to the Clark faithful from local newspapers in my state. We certainly couldn't find a mention of him in the national media (well, except for the story about his driver getting a speeding ticket in Oklahoma. Whoopee. :sarcasm: )
The media put Dean so tightly under a microscope that a rallying cry to supporters in Iowa looked like a maniacal scream (and it wasn't) and they ignored Clark to the point where people in my own state - who didn't take the local newspaper and got all their news from television - didn't even know he was still in the race.
Disgusting what the corporate media did to the two largest grassroots campaigns.

[Totally Committed]

12. The Media was his main Problem:

I had this in my files, originally written and researched by Frenchie Cat:

http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000032.asp
"Oops -- There ARE More Than Two Candidates"

http://campaigndesk.org /

In a moment of flashback, Mickey Kaus writing on Slate remembers that there's still, technically, a nomination fight going on, and acidly points out what a lot of our readers have been arguing: Wes Clark is getting an increasingly raw deal. :

Media to Voters: We're trying to eliminate General Clark tomorrow, OK? Please cooperate this time. .... 10:50 P.M.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2095238 /
Friday, February 6 2004

THE STORY COUNT: If the amount of media devoted to candidates is any indication, then the Dem nomination is already a two man race between Edwards and Kerry.

Take a look at our Election 2004 page this morning. I couldn't find a single story about Wes Clark in any of the major papers except for one - an AP piece in USA Today about Clark's bungling of the abortion issue.
-------------------------
NBC's Today Show Saturday morning, this is the coverage score for candidates:

Discussing the So Carolina Debate this was how many times Tim Russert mentioned candidates names:

Kerry 7 times
Dean 7 times
Edwards 1 time
Clark 0 times

This even even though one of the topics disc in this segment was national defense and other was the economy.
Pictured:

Kerry 2 times
Dean 2 times
Clark 0 times

This on backdrop of the fact that Dean is on a 'downslide' also so if Clark is dismissed for this reason, so would Dean. Also Dean is not running first or second place in any state in upcoming primaries Tuesday Feb 3rd.

In following segment on 'looking ahead to Tuesday', Tim Russert mentioned these candidates:

Kerry 6 times
Dean 0 times
Edwards 4 times
Sharpton 4 times
Clark 3 times

Sharpton is not running in first or second place anywhere and Clark is running in first place in OK and second place AZ.
------------------------------
ABC coverage report on 2/2/04- ABC's coverage the morning of the race for the primary on their Good Morning America Show. Tomorrow is primary day in 7 states.

The coverage was a two part theme.

Main theme was that Kerry was a Patriot fan and Edwards was from Panther territory, so all the coverage was on them and pictures of them campaigning and also watching the Super Bowl game.

No of Time Candidates Mentioned:
(in order of frequency)
Kerry 4 times
Dean 2 times
Edwards 2 times

Clark 0
Kucinich 0
Liebermann 0
Sharpton 0

No. of Time Candidates Pictured:
Kerry 6 times
Dean 5 times
Edwards 4 times

Clark 0
Kucinich 0
Liebermann 0
Sharpton 0

Second part of coverage was on the 'race in general'. It started out, "Well, that was in So Carolina, but there are other states in the race for Tuesday election: Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona (he named them all).
(The report "Amazingly there are NO negative ads running in these states against Senator John Kerry, the presumed front runner." (That was the report friends for the primary race friends on ABC.)

Candidates mentioned news segment two:
Kerry 1 time

Candidates pictures in news segment two:
Kerry 1 time

Candidates not mentioned or pictured in entire coverage:
Clark 0
Kucinich 0
Liebermann 0
Sharpton 0

If you were trying to pick a 'winner' for a race against Bush, who would you vote for in Tuesday's primary?
--------------------
ABC coverage report BarbW on 2/4/04- After Clark's Oklahoma win:
The below is a link to ABC New's Home Page. It looks like a Kerry/Edwards ad, not a cover story. Do you think that they are trying to tell us that Kerry and Edwards are winners. I think so. No sign of Wes on his win here. Clark is invisible.

Then even more amazing, check out their coverage of 'results by state'. I thought for sure I would find Clark's win here - NOT. Not even under Oklahoma!!
www.abcnews.com

Okay this is just online. I'm am coming with their television coverage this morning, which is the same. They don't even admit he won Oklahoma. They say he is leading in OK, like the counting is still going on at 7 am this morning. (Kerry won, Edwards won and Clark is leading in OK, tight race...they won't use the 'win' word with him, as in 'winner')
------------------
02/05/2004
The media continue their not so subtle BIAS.

The following page shows the Campaign Schedules for the runners.

* NOTE * - Clark's and Deans schedules do not include the address of where his rallies are while Kerry's and Edwards have detailed addresses.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/17/politics/main...

This is clear discrimination, I used to like CBS News, I will never forget how they have shaped and dictated this nomination.
------------------
CBS coverage report BarbW on 2/6/04- CBS portrays Clark as a loser again.
CBS Evening News last night, Friday, Feb 6th.

transcript used, but transcribed to notes taken by hand so inexact:

"Next Tuesdays primary proves to be a do or die test for John Edwards and Wesley Clark. They are both native sons to the South. If one of these guys manages to pull off both states, the other one is gone.

Edwards says he is the one because he could carry the south (lots more words and picture of Edwards in cheering thongs).

The AR born Clark, *running low on money, cannot sustain his candidacy on just his slim win in OK (showing picture of a tired looking Clark speaking to practically an empty room.)

(Incidentally, the day before ABC showed pictures of Clark supporters silent and sitting in the grass with signs of support laying on the ground as backdrop for their report. Only one supporter was still standing and she was looking down, like she was discouraged. Gist of story there was also, campaign just barely hanging on.)

Coverage goes on to say that if Edwards and Clark split the South Tuesday then race is over and Kerry wins, and then race is between Edwards and Clark for VP spot. (of course looking at the pictures of Edwards cheering crowds, anyone would assume that the winner of VP spot will be Edwards, especially if this coverage continues. Although it IS better than nothing but barely.
----------------------
I could go on and on and on......as we were tracking and documenting what the media did. I'll tell you this, it ain't going to happen again.


Entire Thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1417462&mesg_id=1417462

TC

[AP]

34. I liked my response to that post in that old thread:

I think it's worth noting the first paragraph of your second link:

"The cover-your-butt reporting has begun even before the results of the Iowa caucuses are in. As recently as a week ago, when Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt looked to most reporters like the clear front-runners in Iowa, much of the campaign press seemed to have forgotten about even covering Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John Edwards."

I think it's important to note that the media really tried to ignore Kerry and Edwards in the lead up to Iowa. NPR didn't mention Edwards's name once on the January 18 ATC, and IIRC, Kerry was mentioned only once, while Gephardt & Dean got a ton of coverage.

Kerry and Edwards did well notwithstanding no national coverage at the critical moment in the campaign, and, as the article in your second link shows, the media probably felt they had to compensate for the blatant (and probably not accidental) divergence between what they were saying and what turned out to be the truth about the previous two weeks.

Also, you must realize that a lot of Edwards supporters were just as upset with the coverage and felt that their candidate had the best chance to beat Bush so the media tried to harness enthusiasm for him and divert it toward a sense that he was running for the VP nomination. For Edwards supporters, the script seemed to be "this guy's not running for president, he's running for Vice President, so don't vote for him in the primary."

Personally, I suspected that the media felt that Edwards was the biggest threat to Bush (which is an argument supported by this study: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html). I thought that after Iowa, the media realized that nothing they were going to do was going to get Dean or Gephardt the nomination, so they went to Plan B: making sure that Edwards didn't get on the top of the ticket. But that's how it goes with perception when you like a candidate a lot, I guess. You think everyone is conspiring against your candidate.

In any event, Clark got shitty media coverage (except they sure liked to talk about him up to and on the day he announced!). I was one of the first people to complain about (especially NPR's) coverage of Clark here at DU right after he announced. But I think it's also important to realize that Kerry and Edwards got ignored and crapped on at important moments too, but fought through it with great organization and persona (by Kerry) and great retail political skills and a great message (for Edwards).

You can only blame the media up to a point. I also think we've gone through this in other threads. Clark's campaign was probably over not because of the media but because he started late, because Dean didn't win Iowa, because Kerry won IA and NH convincingly, and because Clark didn't kill everyone in the south, and it wasn't that the media stopped him from doing any one of those things -- it was because it was like a series of dominoes which didn't fall for Clark. Each one of those events compounded the previous one. A February 6 article showing happy Edwards crowds and sad Clark crowds is rough. But the fact is probably that on February 6 the arc of the campaigns was pretty clear, and that Edwards's crowds had good reason to be happy, and Clark crowds had a reason to be upset.

Also, in terms of arguing for Clark as a candidate in 2008 goes, I'm not sure how much weight blaming the media is going to have. The media doesn't just want Clark to loose. They don't want any Democrat to win. The only two candidates I saw whom the RW wanted to win were Dean and Gephardt, and even those two would have been enemies of the media had they been nominated (which is why, especially as shown by Dean, you don't want a candidate the media can easily define).

The media is going to be crappy in 2008 too. I'd rather have a candidate who did well despite getting crappy (and or NO) coverage than a candidate who couldn't persevere through crappy media.

[cajones_II]

49. I'll never forget the blackout frustration

I kept after the guys at Mickey Cantors office almost daily,with a flurry of faxes and (proposed) press releases and they were just as mystified as I, although I sensed at the time they were more "weary" than I was outraged.

I bet I wrote 20 LTE's , none of them published, about the intentional non-coverage.

I still wonder how and who pulled the plug on covering the General. It was a systematic starvation of the campaign.

[BrainRants]

6. Clark / Boxer '08

has a ring to it and I think she has a better chance at being a legit candidate than Hillary does.

However, I can already hear the "Out of Touch California Liberal" bleating from the RW hatemongers.

[Totally Committed]

13. CLARK/BOXER '08...

is my dream ticket.

TC

[funflower]

41. The ignored him even when he won

The media made it out to be a 3-way race (Kerry/Edwards/Dean) even when Clark was winning as much or more than Dean.

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MollyStark]

2. Do you mean sep-oct 2003?

I agree that he got a huge build up in the media during that time period.

[qanda]

4. Lose or loose?

[bunkerbuster1]

7. If only he could've "loosed" the tremendous surge he'd enjoyed...

hey, ya go to war with the OP you have...

[vi5]

8. I don't recall Clark ever being in the lead.....

Dean, yes. But Clark? I never saw him being in the lead anywhere except a rabid DU support base.

Every poll I saw always had him somewhere in the middle. But I could be wrong.

[Clark2008]

11. He was in the lead in several states in primaries

And, was beating Bush in a CNN poll the week he announced - 49 to 46 percent.

Edit: Cannot type this morning.

[bowens43]

9. He had nothing to offer.

No relevant experience, he wasn't a Democrat and he had thirty years of military indoctrination to overcome.

Of the Democratic candidates, he was by far the least qualified.

[Clark2008]

10. No relevant experience?

:rofl:

He was only one of three Dem primary candidates (the other two were Dean and Graham) who had been in an executive position.

Whatever.

[MollyStark]

15. Military leader doesn't translate to civilan exec experience N/T

[eallen]

17. Washington. Eisenhower.

Grant has to be listed as evidence for your point.

[AntiCoup2K4]

38. None of whom had to deal with a whore media working for the other team

If the Corporate media had existed in Washington's time they probably would have called him a "dangerous leftist" because he dared to lead a war against England.

[Jai4WKC08]

42. Boy, you got that right

Not to mention his failures in the French & Indian war. And God only knows what they'd have made of his civilian connections.

Unless he was running as a Repub, of course. Then he'd walk on water.

[Clark2008]

21. The spouses and children of the soldiers are civilians

and, yes, he made out a budget for their schools, roads and housing, too.

Next...

[Texas_Kat]

45. You obviously know nothing about military leadership then ....EOM

[vi5]

16. Much as Bush has brainwashed people into thinking otherwise...

..the position of president is that of a politician first and foremost. Whether we want to admit that or not, it's true. That being the case, Wes Clark had no direct political experience being being elected to a position by the people.

If you don't think that's the most important aspect of being president then that's fine. But to deny that it's an important aspect of it, or to claim that Clark had this experience is missing the point also.

The way I see it Americans as a whole are probably less ready for a "regular guy" president who is not a typical career politician, than they are for a woman, minority, or non-christian president.

I like Clark. A lot. But I'm also a realist.

[flpoljunkie]

18. You don't get as high up as Clark in the miltary w/o political savvy.

That said, Clark made several stumbles--the first right out of the gate--when he was questioned about whether he would support the Iraq war resolution or not. His answer was seen as waffling. His response was unclear to me at the time, and he, like Kerry with the awful "I voted for it, before I voted against it" rhetoric, did not clear it up right away. Kerry's was an incredible gift to the Rethugs.

Running for president is tough--even for seasoned politicians. Our sorry media, is indeed, not interested in truth or justice--only in the horse race.

Clark is a very bright and decent man--with obvious leadership abilities. We have several potential '08 candidates who would make fine presidents--and Wes Clark is one of them.

[vi5]

19. I don't disagree with any of your points....

I think Clark would make a fine president. My only feeling is that the nuance of thought that would be required on the part of the voting public to elect him, is something that we just don't have in this country. And I don't see us getting it in the next 3 years.

[Adelante]

27. He's a very plain speaker, though

He gets complicated ideas across very simply and clearly when he speaks on the stump. I don't see that as a problem. If he got through the primaries I think he would be a good shot in the GE where he's talking to the nation and not just the party. The nuance of thought -- getting past that he is a military man, that he isn't a lifelong Democratic, that he is truly as progressive as he presents -- that's hard for some factions of the Democratic Party to grasp. If they could, I think we have a Democratic President.

[vi5]

29. Again, I don't disagree....

..and I don't think the Democratic party would be the ones we would need to worry about. I think he would be a difficult general election sell to make to joe average voter. Not because of a lack of intelligence or speaking skills or ideas on Clark's part. But because of ignorance on the part of the voting public (not helped along in any way by the media).

[Adelante]

31. For the nomination, I mean

No worries about Dems for any nominee, but getting through the primaries, I think, is the hard part for Wes. He's out running around the country for the party, working with local Dems to help in 2006. So I guess more folks will get to know him better and decide if they find him more acceptable than they thought they would. We'll have to see on that.

Getting through to the voting public is the easier part. He really can talk to anybody from any walk of life and get them to understand. I've seen it again and again. One time in a VFW hall in New Hampshire he was talking to this extremely blue collar crowd, all white, and broke out with how generations of black men are lost to the prison system and lose their voting rights.

I was like, "Jesus Christ, Wesley, did you have to say it here?"

The audience somehow accepted it from him and nodded their heads and there was no blowback. And I said to myself, well, this guy can do this. He knows how. And maybe he knows how because of his decades in the military, where he interacted regularly with working class people, and of course his own personal history.

But my point is, I was wrong and he was right. He just has to say what he has to say in his own way for people to get what he's about. So I don't worry about a GE run where he's got to get through to the regular voting public.

Yeah, the media is always a bitch.

[Jai4WKC08]

30. I don't disagree with you completely, altho...

I think you underestimate Clark's political experience. Not "political" in the sense of running a campaign, but in the sense of maneuvering with politicians, which is what I think you must mean in so far as what a president must be able to do. This latter is more than the interpersonal politics that are necessary to advance in any large organization, altho those are important too.

As a senior military commander, Clark had an awful lot of success in slugging it out with Congress (both principles and staff) and a very large segment of the exectuive branch bureaucracy, not to mention the politicians in foreign governments. Certainly more experience at it than any governor, and probably more than a lot of senators and representatives.

But I also see a certain contradiction when you say, on one hand, that Bush has "brainwashed people" into thinking he's just a "regular guy" and not a politician. Then, on the other hand, you say that "Americans as a whole are probably less ready for a 'regular guy' president," implying that they really prefer a politician.

Because I do think a lot of Bush's appeal to the very many superficially informed voters out there, stems from the perception, bullshit tho it is, that he is just a regular guy. But to me, that means a significant number of Americans do in fact prefer the good ol' boy persona.

The most electable candidate will be one who can project just that image, while building an effective political machine (or in Bush's case, having it built for him) to do the heavy lifting. The best president will be one who has the intellect, courage, conviction and compassion--and yes, the political savvy--to do the job while still being enough of a "regular guy," or at least maintain that image, to keep the voters on his side.

[Adelante]

23. A head of state position

NATO-Saceur is the equivalent of a head of state.

[QC]

14. The same can be said of many people who post here. n/t

[KittyWampus]

24. How Some DU'ers Escape The Sleepy Man For So Long Is A Mystery.

[Adelante]

20. Iowa happened

Kerry took it home to New Hampshire. It was a mistake on Clark's part not to go to Iowa. He says it himself. But the fact is he got in very late, the others had been at the spadework for two years, and Clark had no time for the long haul of Iowa politicking.

After Iowa, it was all over for anyone but Kerry. It's not complicated

[Sparkly]

22. Le Bait du Flambe

The Clark legions around here just throw compliments and historical revisions in an arbitrary yet almost ad hoc manner, and thats putting it kindly...

We can still claim Clark... "Built this nation" ,... "served his country proud in the revolutionary war, Getteysburg, World War 1 , World War 2, etc.",...."a proven vote getter" , ...."the best candidate" ,... "a peace lover" ,... "the greatest defender of civil libertys ever" ,... "the REAL subject and reason Akenatens hymn was composed" ..."the sun, the moon , and the stars"... "a cub scout" , etc.

Nothing wrong with revisiting the primaries I suppose, but it seems to me this thread is all about goading Clark supporters, in the pretense of a valid topic.

[CarolNYC]

25. Agreed...

One would think that people would have more important things to do with their time than try to bait others here but I guess that's not so for some. :(

[Totally Committed]

32. Certain-moi, mon cheres....

I agree.

TC

[formernaderite]

26. He was a completely untested candidate....

with no previous campaign or elected experience. That might have had "something" to do with it....

[Adelante]

28. Yes

That's certainly in the mix. There is no single reason.

[kentuck]

33. For months, they wouldn't cover Clark at all..

It was as if he didn't exist...

[Larkspur]

35. His early lead was based on his ego

which is why he got in the race to begin with. The Media Bubble on him popped after the grind of a civilian political campaign took it's toll on Clark. Of course, when it surfaced early that Clark was not a registered Democrat, who was aiming to win a Dem Prez nomination, instead of going Independent, that sowed more doubts into the true motives behind Clark's late entry into the Dem Prez nomination, and started the Clark Fizzle.

[ArkDem]

36. He showed that he was an amateur. Plus, he was bad about

blinking too slowly.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jai4WKC08]

39. Talk about your "historical revisions"

First off, to say "it has never been adressed" is outright laughable.

But if we must revisit and rehash, let's tell the story straight, shall we?

It's true, I think, that Clark got some decent initial media attention, not all positive but ok for the most part, and it paid off in the polls of early fall 03, right around the time of his announcement (not that there's much "pay" in polls). Most of his highest initial ratings were in favorability and in direct match-ups with Bush, especially when his resume was described only, or at least when "General" was put in front of his name. By "Wesley Clark" only, he never had much name recognition, so he couldn't have been getting all that much media coverage.

Clark made some mis-steps, to be sure. Most were more a case of media portrayal (like the Nagourney article that misrepresented what he said about voting for the IWR), but that's part of the game and he'd be the first to acknowledge it. Has been, in fact. He had trouble putting together a cohesive campaign staff (what candidate doesn't?), complicated by being late to the race and having to transition from a grassroots draft to a professional campaign. He also had one or two rough debate performances, but there were other debates that he was widely proclaimed to have won, and none that he didn't score points in. And there were attacks from the other candidates, especially Lieberman and Edwards thru the Shelton proxy, that got some traction. All of which drug him down from those initial standings in the polls.

BUT, if we're gonna assume polls are an accurate indicator (and I think they have their place), by Dec 03 Clark was starting to come back with a vengence. By mid-January he was second behind Dean in NH and closing. He was leading Dean in the South and much of the rest of the country. Kerry did not appear to be a factor until literally days before the Iowa caucus and Edwards wasn't even on the radar.

It's sort of absurd to claim Clark had any kind of free ride because the other candidates were busy in Iowa and NH. As if he wasn't putting in as much time in NH as any of them, while attempting to work his long term strategy in southern and western states. Meanwhile, Clark was starting from scratch on policy papers, fund-raising structure, endorsements, ad development, and thousand other necessary fundamentals of a campaign. Some of which is the stuff the other guys had in their pockets for years.

So Clark had to make the hard decision to forego Iowa. He didn't want to, but the conventional wisdom at the time was that Iowa didn't much matter. In 2004, the conventional wisdom was wrong. And the way it played out, Kerry swept out of the mid-west straight back to his own backyard. A lot of the support Clark had gained in NH swung back to Kerry because he was the home-town boy who had "proved" he was electable outside of New England. I suppose you can argue that Clark's NH support was soft. But given the competition of long-standing and popular New Englander politicians, he did well enough to come in first among all those from outside the immediate neighborhood. Even given Edwards startling second-place in Iowa and the media fawning that went with it.

The one-two punch of Iowa and NH essentially ensured Kerry's win in every state to follow, with the sole exceptions of Edward's birthstate of SC, Dean's in VT, and Clark in heavily red-state OK. There really was no contest for any of the not-Kerry candidates after Iowa. But NH locked it down. And nothing that happened from that point on is really indicative of anything.

[JNelson6563]

40. What is most amusing

is how those who hate these threads kick 'em the most.

:shrug:

Julie

[Sparkly]

43. Why not keep it kicked?

I think it stands as a fine example of bashing and baiting the "Clark legions" -- saying ("putting it kindly") that they arbitrarily revise history in an ad hoc manner.

Also noteworthy: the sarcastic "singing praises" paragraph.

The thread's not locked, which is even more reason I think it should be as visible as possible.

[LandOLincoln]

46. As you're doing? ;-) n/t

[Sparkly]

48. Key phrase: "those who hate these threads..." n/t

[Adelante]

51. 'These threads' meaning flamebait?

Or what?

Did the OP start the thread to provoke serious discussion? Or to provoke Clark supporters?

Perhaps you know the OP better than I do, Julie. Can you shed any light on the matter?

[JNelson6563]

52. That wasn't my exactly my view

I don't know that I'd write it off completely as flame bait but it is not very complimentary of Clark. When I see at least half the replies are from Clark supporters it seems kinda curious.

But as was posted as another reply to my post here, some seem to think it highlights some sort of imagined persecution or something.

:shrug:

Julie

[Texas_Kat]

54. "imagined persecution"?

I guess we should start a database and put some metrics in place.....

What percentage of negative posts about Clark from a handful of posters would you consider a "real persecution"?

edited for typo

[Texas_Kat]

44. This is thread is such a good example

of exactly why there are so many Clark folks on DU.

If this kind of egregious post didn't exist, we wouldn't feel obligated to spend so much time here defending against them.

Whether this OP (or others) like it or not, Clark's gains in popularity speak much louder than these kinds of snarky attacks hurt him.

[Sparkly]

47. I think it's become a sport.

Personally, I would never, EVER start a thread inviting attacks on another Democrat and blatantly insulting his/her supporters.

[Texas_Kat]

50. Like Wes said

"The American people will trust the Democratic Party to defend America when they believe that Democrats will defend other Democrats."

This OP shows the character of those who would rather try to destroy their friends (whether they recognize a friend when they see one or not is a whole 'nother story)....

It takes a lot of courage to shoot the guy standing next to you, and says a lot about the Democratic 'echo chamber'.

No wonder they call it a circular firing squad.

[Moderator]

55. Locking.....

This is inflammatory.



DU Moderator