Well, Why Not?

Kinky ran for Governor of Texas on the slogan, “why the hell not?” Apparently, the people of Texas decided that being a song writer/country star/novelist is not the experience needed to be Governor. I am not judging the Texas voters decision, but the slogan got me thinking. Who is not a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, but could easily be a good nominee and why not President?

General Wes Clark ran a horrible campaign in 2004. He avoided Iowa and lost his lead in New Hampshire to the Kerry surge. He barely won Oklahoma and sputtered out after Wisconsin. Rumor has it, that Clark will once again seek the nomination. Clark still has a large support among liberal bloggers mostly from his stance of removing the troops from Iraq. But his stance on the war may not be his best draw. After all many of the Democratic candidates have the same stance on Iraq. However, he is the only candidate that is a retired General and what is more a former commander of all of NATO forces brining about a successful bombing campaign in the Kosovo crisis without loosing a troop. Should Iraq fall further into crisis or the saber-rattling with Iran continue a former General would make a formidable candidate. How could a man in uniform not support the troops? But if Clark runs an ineffective campaign in ’08 as he did in ’04, he will not find out if he can stand up to GOP attacks. Instead, he will find himself once again bowing out long before the convention.

After Chris Dodd announced that he was thinking of running for President, the media rolled its eyes. After all Dodd is a New England liberal who would be competing with the former nominee Kerry and the self-promoting Senator Biden for the mantle of representing New England values in a time they were not highly sought after by the party. The wind has shifted slightly. Kerry came to the same conclusion as everyone else and realized he would not win and dropped out. Biden started his campaign by making a comment that may end his campaign. Dodd is taking advantage of every free media opportunity to show he is in favor of a binding resolution against the war stopping Bush’s escalation. All of this seems to have broken him out of the third-tier candidates and into the top of the second-tier. Vilsack has been unable to gain any momentum after his announcement despite spending about half a million to do so. Richardson has become almost mute since his announcement. This has left Dodd the opportunity to rise. In the most recent National Review rankings of Democratic candidates, Dodd came in a surprising fourth behind HRC, Obama and Edwards. While it is not probable, Dodd will fine a way to surge to the top, he has a year to do it. After all a Senator for twenty-eight years and chairman of the finance committee is not a bad resume to be President.

So why not Clark? Why not Dodd? Why not Gravel, ok too far.