I am a #1 for Dean, strong supporter and right now it will take a couple of sticks of dynamite to get me off of the Dean campaign, but with that said, I like what I have been hearing from Wesley Clark in the past couple of days. I am firmly convinced that we will be seeing the ugliest campaign in my lifetime and probably the lifetime of my parents. The nominee of the Democratic Party will be smeared as anti-God, pro-sodomy, pro Saddam, pro-French and anti-Apple Pie and baseball. It will not matter who the nominee is.

We are already seeing the smear machine cranking up against both Dean and Clark as I think that they are the only ones with the organizations capable of running effective decentralized campaigns which are in my opinion the best way to win in 2004.

Resume will be unimportant in protecting Clark, as we have the Max Cleland example of a triple amputee from Vietnam being smeared as unpatriotic and not knowing how to protect America. He, as well as Dean, will have to convince on a visceral level that they can provide better security for all Americans than Bush. We know that Bush is a policy disaster but he is doing something so he has institutional inertia on his side.

Well Clark is doing a good job of creating the groundwork for that visceral knowledge. First he is willing to rip Tom Delay a new asshole when Clark’s patriotism was impugned by the Roach. I am very glad that Clark gets that being civil is a loser’s strategy in this game. I am also glad that the facts and the evidence are on our side.

More importantly in the creation of a visceral reaction are Gen. Clark’s comments when asked what he would do if anyone impugns his patriotism: ““I’ll beat the s— out of them,” This is the type of visceral toughness that will need to be exuded in order to convince people that Clark will protect them. Dean has controlled, focused anger and the wrestler’s build which can communicate this message, and Clark has 35 years of training on how to systemically and methodically cause serious bodily harm.

I am glad that both are willing to utilize their respective assets to communicate viscerally.

Crossposted at Fester’s Place