Washington Watch
!landing And Politics
The general has a short-term need to play on his Jewish genealogy.
JAMES D.BESSER
Washington Correspondent
R
etired General Wesley
Clark, who jumped into
the crowded Democratic
ring last week, isn't Jewish,
but his Jewish roots could figure promi-
nently in his strategy for winning the
2004 presidential nomination.
The reason: Clark, a latecomer to the
race, needs lots of money, and fast. "He
has to raise a ton of money," said a top
Jewish Democrat this week. "And he
has to avoid gaffes for the next few
weeks so he can put together position
papers.
"You look at the top 100 givers in the
party, and a very high percentage of
them are Jews. A lot of them have been
sitting on the sidelines so far. So they're
ripe for the picking."
But to do that picking, this source
said, Clark has to demonstrate that he
is a credible candidate with a good
chance of beating President George W.
Bush next year. And he has to demon-
strate a sensitivity to the hot,
button issues that have a big
impact on pro-Israel campaign
contributors — a lesson
another surprise frontrunner,
former Vermont Gov. Howard
Dean, learned the hard way
recently.
"He's intelligent, he's articu-
late, but he's fallen on his face
in the first days of the cam-
Clark
paign," said Kean University
political scientist Gilbert
Kahn. "He needs to be handled better;
his learning curve has to be extremely
steep. He doesn't have the luxury of
making mistakes."
Clark will be pressed hard to explain
his Mideast views in detail in the com-
ing weeks; how he responds will have a
significant impact on the flow of badly
needed Jewish dollars, Kahn said.
Those views include a call for greater
international involvement in solving the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute and cautious
endorsement of NATO peacekeepers
for the region, both ideas that are
regarded warily by most pro-Israel
groups and vehemently opposed by
some.
This week, the former NATO
supreme commander and Democratic
9/26
2003
36
newcomer was burning up the phone
lines, touching base with potential con-
tributors across the country. He was
also aggressively working Capitol Hill,
seeking endorsements — including
endorsements from Jewish lawmakers.
He is also building a campaign
machine that includes a number of for-
mer Clinton administration officials.
On the Clark team so far: former
National Service director Eli Segal, for-
mer Commerce secretary Mickey
Kantor and Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-
111., a top White House aide during the
Clinton years.
Clark is also basking in the glow of
successful fund-raising forays to
Hollywood, Silicon Valley and New
York. Clark reportedly hopes to raise up
to $5 million before the end of the cur-
rent reporting period next week, a total
that would reinforce his standing as a
serious candidate — and possibly con-
vince some of his less successful rivals to
drop out.
"He needs money, he needs impor-
tant backers and he needs something
only he can provide:
giving people an affir-
mative reason to sup-
port him," said
Benjamin Ginsberg, a
Johns Hopkins
University political sci-
entist.
And that means
courting Jewish cam-
paign contributors who
traditionally provide
"the bulk of the money
for Democratic candidates," he said.
"Because of that, I think he will redis-
cover his Jewish roots very quickly."
In 1999, Clark revealed that while he
grew up a Baptist and later converted to
Catholicism, his father was Jewish.
"Our community doesn't have a lot
of generals," Ginsberg said. "If a general
comes along and wants to be Jewish,
who's going to turn him away?"
Dollar Blitz
The impending end of the quarter for
campaign donations is touching off last-
minute money blitzes in other
Democratic presidential campaigns, as
well; the upcoming Federal Election
Commission report card on contribu-
tions could prove critical for several.
This week, supporters of Sen. Joe
Lieberman, D-Conn., who continues to
rank near the top in national polls, sent
an urgent "Third Quarter Countdown"
e-mail to potential contributors. The
goal: to make sure the campaign "finish-
es the quarter with lots of momentum."
The critical thing for Lieberman now:
keeping up the appearance of momen-
tum until after the Iowa caucuses and
the New Hampshire pri-
mary, where former
Vermont Gov. Howard
Dean, Gen. Clark, Sen.
John Kerry, D-Mass., and
Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-
Mo., will slug it out.
"We have said from the
beginning that Feb. 3 would
be an important day for our
campaign," said Lieberman
Lieberman
campaign director Craig
Smith in the e-mail to
potential contributors. "This is the day
we will start to win the nomination."
That date marks the Arizona,
Delaware and South Carolina primaries,
among others, in which Lieberman is
expected to run strong.
"He's running an effective, steady,
unspectacular race," said a top Jewish
politico. "His strategy is clearly to hold
until after New Hampshire and Iowa,
when there could be utter confusion
among the other frontrunners and Joe
will have his chance."
Lieberman and several other
Democratic contenders were buoyed by
a new CNN poll showing them all gain-
ing on or beating President Bush, whose
job approval ratings continue to sink in
the face of job losses, the government
budget crisis and mounting anarchy and
terrorism in Iraq.
Less pleasing to the other Democratic
candidates, including Lieberman: the
fact that after only five days as an official
candidate, Clark did better against Bush
than any of them.
In the sample of 877 registered voters,
49 percent said they would vote for
Clark, 46 for Bush, while the president
beat Dean, Gephardt and Lieberman by
slim margins.
Faith-Based
The Bush administration's faith-based
initiative may be bogged down in
Congress, but it is on the fast track
inside the executive branch, where the
president is intensifying his effort to use
already-existing authority to expand
government help for religious institu-
tions.
But that hasn't produced a bonanza
for Jewish social service providers. In a
series of grants announced this week,
no Jewish groups were among the lucky
recipients, although at
least one applied.
On Monday, the Bush
cabinet convened to report
back to the boss about
progress in opening up
government health and
human service contracts to
religious groups. The
administration also
announced a series of new
regulations lowering barri-
ers for religious group par-
ticipation in grant programs — changes
that critics say will lead to the improper
use of government money for things
like proselytizing.
And the Department of Health and
Human Services announced $30.5 mil-
lion in grants to support 81 community
groups and faith-based charities, and
another $24 million for prdgrams that
received funding last year under the
administration's "Compassion Capital
Fund."
According to an analysis by
Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, regulatory changes
announced by the administration will
provide up to $20 billion to religious
groups that operate substance abuse and
mental health service programs. Under
the Compassion Capital Fund, the list
of grantees includes interfaith, commu-
nity and Christian groups, but no
Jewish social service providers, despite
the fact that at least one — the
Orthodox Union —.applied.
The administration has not given up
on Capitol Hill, but shifted the empha-
sis from sweeping faith-based legislation
to "piecemeal" changes in legislation
reauthorizing existing programs, said
Richard Flotin of the American Jewish
Committee. That includes efforts to
remove provisions prohibiting employ-
ment discrimination by religious groups
that use government money in pro-