Clark Struggles to Keep Tennessee From Being Camp’s Last Stand

On Tuesday, aides to Wesley K. Clark were quietly arranging for the retired general to fly home and drop out of the Democratic presidential race when he found reason to go on by eking out a win in the Oklahoma primary. He now faces another make-or-break contest in Tennessee.

As this state’s Tuesday primary approaches, however, Clark’s campaign appears to be struggling.

Staffers have given up salaries to pay for advertising. The once-positive Clark attacks rivals John F. Kerry and John Edwards daily, though his criticisms don’t appear to have slowed either candidate.

His campaign has suffered relentless scheduling problems, making so many last-minute changes that Clark often runs an hour or two late, and sometimes speed-speaks to audiences to try to catch up.

At a Coffee County Democratic Party event recently in Manchester, Clark arrived late and sounded a bit like an auctioneer as he sped through a stripped-down version of an ever-changing stump speech.

Kerry and Edwards “voted almost 70% of the time with George Bush,” Clark said. “I only voted once,” he said, referring to the 2000 general election. “I voted against him.”

He was in and out in less than 20 minutes.

Clark entered the presidential contest in September as the anti-Howard Dean, a centrist to erstwhile front-runner Dean’s left-leaning candidacy.

The precipitous decline of Dean, a former governor of Vermont, however, has coincided with the equally dramatic ascent of another centrist: Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts.

Clark scored a narrow victory in Oklahoma on Tuesday, but Edwards’ second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses in January and subsequent win in South Carolina last week appeared to give him more momentum.

Clark has tinkered with his message to find themes that resonate with audiences, and to set himself apart from Kerry and Edwards, a senator from North Carolina.

Some attempts had less a ringing sound than a thud.

At several events, Clark has told of spending all his vacation time -- 30 days in 1980 -- to fix up a wrecked car worth just $1,400 because he didn’t have the money to replace it, only to go on and mention that after he retired he sat on the boards of seven companies and became an investment banker.

“I didn’t know he was rich,” said Mike Keeney, 38, a voter who went to hear him speak in Manchester.

Clark also is campaigning in Virginia, which also holds its primary Tuesday, though he is spending the bulk of his time and money in Tennessee.

His television ads have aired in Tennessee for more than a month. Kerry and Edwards have been on the air about a week.

Clark has campaigned tirelessly here since arriving just hours after his win in Oklahoma, while Kerry has popped in and out. And Edwards has scaled back his public schedule to raise money and appear on “Late Night With David Letterman.”

“I see pretty good support for Gen. Clark,” said Mary Boyd, chairwoman of the Davidson County Democratic Party.

“His television ads have been very effective. Kerry and Edwards, though, seem to have more experienced staffs here.”

Having entered the race five months ago, Clark is still little-known to many voters here and has taken to delving deep into his biography. The candidate, who once told audiences almost nothing about being wounded in Vietnam, for example, now goes into explicit detail about being shot.

“The first round got me right here in the leg,” he told one crowd recently, pointing to his right calf. “The next one went between thumb and forefinger -- shot the rifle out of my hand....

“The third one went through my shoulder,” he continued. “Then, when I was crawling away, I ... got one back here,” he said, pointing to his buttocks.

Clark says he wants to remind people that he was once a fighting soldier in Vietnam and not always a four-star general.

Audiences frequently find his tales riveting. But some observers say Clark might be better off had he shared his personal story with voters earlier in the campaign and used these final days before the Tennessee primary to talk about what he can do for them.

Edwards, who has been campaigning for more than a year, has managed to widely distribute his “son-of-a-mill-worker” biography and been able to focus on his message of “Two Americas” -- the wealthy elite governing the masses -- and how he would try to change that.

“[Clark’s] message is not connecting with voters, and Edwards’ is,” said Vanderbilt University political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer.

“The guy who looked like a great candidate on paper isn’t necessarily a great candidate when he gets out there.

“If he doesn’t do well” in Tuesday’s primary, Oppenheimer said, “I would think it would be over.”

Clark won’t discuss his plans should he not win, saying that he expects victory.