To Make Himself Look Good On National Security Obama Could Recruit An Anti-War General As VP
One Wesley Clark, to be specific.
On Tuesday, Sen. Kent Conrad revealed that Sen. Barack Obama is including “former top military leaders” among the approximately two dozen names currently rattling around in a not-so-short vice presidential short list.
Such figures don’t come much more “top” in either political party than retired four-star General Wes Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO during the Kosovo War. After a late entry into the Democratic 2004 presidential race, in which he won the Oklahoma primary and finished second in three other contests, Clark turned himself into a popular surrogate on the stump for Democratic congressional candidates during the midterm elections.
Relatively new to partisan politics, he seems to have taken to the enterprise with gusto. As an early backer of Sen. Hillary Clinton, Clark traveled in the last year to Iowa, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, Indiana and South Dakota. But even now that the spouse of his former Commander in Chief is out of the race, Clark isn’t done for the season. In an email pitch to his nationwide network of supporters last week, Clark urged party unity and described the call to elect Obama as a “critical mission.”
If Obama were to choose someone like Clark for VP I’d take it as a tacit admission from Obama that he’s weak (to put it nicely, “clueless” and “naive” to put it more accurately) on foreign policy and needs to do something to reassure voters.
Whether or not having Clark on the ticket would actually reassure voters is something that remains to be seen.
