The Myth of the Shrinking Campaign Staff Pool

Concerns have been expressed (I know, I’ve seen them) that General Clark might have trouble finding talented political staff still available to work on his campaign for President, because Clark will be entering the race for the Democratic nomination several weeks or even months later than other Democratic candidates. This is a concern that never seems to come up regarding Al Gore, when people assert that he may still make a late entrance into the Presidential race; it is only raised about Wes Clark. And that is probably because in 2004, when Wes Clark entered the race late in September, he had to cobble together a campaign staff quickly from national political operatives who were not yet spoken for at the time, and that became problematic for him.

Fair enough as far as that goes, but a wrong lesson can be drawn from Clark’s 2004 campaign experience. Obviously entering a race in September is a different matter than entering a race in, let’s say February. The truth is there are many good potential campaign workers and managers still out there to hire to guide a Presidential run, though not all of them have previously established strong national reputations. While John Kerry got the pick of the litter of national Democratic campaign advisors when he became our nominee for President in 2004, there are some who now say he might have been better off with a runt.

Read more at A Left Turn FOR CLARK