WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- It has been a very good week indeed for retired Gen. Wesley Clark. He came across as an impressive-looking hero testifying against Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. He was the only Democrat who didn't appear diminished by the capture of Saddam Hussein. And he even won an endorsement from Madonna.
Does this mean he can still make a fight of it for the presidential nomination? Maybe.
Above all else, Clark dramatically showed this week he enjoys the most crucial gift any politician and would-be president can ever have: luck. He could not possibly know when his testimony Monday against the former Serbian president at the International Criminal Court in The Hague was scheduled that it would come less than two days after Saddam was hauled out of his spider hole on that remote Tikrit farm. But it did, and for everyone in the Democratic Party -- except for his primary opponents -- it could not have come at a better time.
For although Milosevic never had the chance to inflict the domestic horrors that Saddam did for more than 30 years, he was an ugly tyrant who unleashed repeated wars and waves of ethic cleansing that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and brought misery to millions more in the former Yugoslavia in the decade after the collapse of communism. Clark was the NATO supreme commander who led the highly successful military operation to squeeze him out.
And now he is running for the presidency under Democratic colors.
The Dems have not had a war hero with that kind of achievement on his resume since they ran Andrew Jackson. (Franklin Pierce was a war hero but not a supreme commander and George McClellan never quite managed to win any battle.)
Clark's testimony in The Hague highlighted all that. It even won him a favorable Page A1 profile in the Washington Post Wednesday. All this is manna from heaven for the Clark campaign and again, the timing was perfect for them.
Clark's campaign remains extremely well-funded. He raised $10 million from September to the beginning of December, far more than any of his Democratic opponents except for the soaring Howard Dean. But a host of polls over the past two weeks have indicated that even he was starting to see significant erosion of his earlier support for Dean across the South and West.
Former Vice President Al Gore's bombshell endorsement of Dean last week threatened to seal the campaign before a single primary vote had been cast. And Dean, as he revealed Monday, had even lined up an impressive array of Clinton administration foreign policy and national security heavyweights to serve as his own team.
This was a brilliant move that might have threatened to pull the rug from under Clark's feet, challenging the contention of Dean's critics that he lacked the substance and know-how to handle the priority foreign policy and security issues he would face as president. With such a team, why should he need Clark? And why should Democratic voters either for that matter?
Saddam's capture Saturday told them why. A New York Times/CBS poll reported Wednesday showed the president's approval rating shooting up from a worrying 45 percent before the capture to 52 percent right after it and the again-surging Dow responded with another bounce, too.
Even during a normal campaigning week, Saddam's capture and the president's reviving ratings would have played to Clark's strengths. But having him testify at The Hague right then hammered the lesson home. With Clark on the Democrats' side of the playing field, the Republicans do not have a monopoly on tough guys who look good in flight suits with a track record of toppling noxious tyrants.
Clark's Hague testimony and Bush's "Saddam bounce" of course may not help him at all with Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire or even in the South. But even if they do not, they serve notice to the Dems that they desperately need the military credibility Clark brings on their team.
Clark now faces two prospects, both bright and both a lot more likely than they were even last week. He could become the rallying point for all the "stop Dean" forces -- and he already is not short of money and media clout so he will have the legs to fight through the entire primary campaign and give Dean a run for his money.
In this context, Madonna's endorsement is not to be despised. She is a far bigger star than any who have so far come out for Dean. Indeed, Clark spokesman Jamal Simmons quipped Wednesday, "We have a superstar supporting a four-star."
But more, Madonna's endorsement serves notice that Clark has already impressive star power clout in Hollywood. That means he may have the celebrity support as well as the money to give Dean a serious run for his money in California. The Clark campaign is confident that he can, and they may not be wrong.
But even if Dean wipes the floor with Clark in the Southern and Western primaries, the retired four-star general, the first former general to seriously challenge for the presidential nomination since McClellan won it in 1864, will still be the vice presidential candidate of Dean's dreams. If he is on the ticket, he can taunt and blast the president on national security issues with authority while leaving Dean free to look presidential and sail above the fray. The Dems have not enjoyed that kind of "home-field hero" advantage since they ran PT109 war hero John F. Kennedy at the top of their ticket 43 years ago.
Good times never last forever in politics and usually they do not even last for long. But they sure beat bad times. Clark is having a good time this week. It could augur many more.
