Looking back, there's little doubt in my mind that, had Clark entered the primaries when Dean did, he would've won them. I'm also convinced that Kerry/Clark rather than Kerry/Edwards would have taken home the presidential bacon. Kerry thought his resume enough to prove his national security cred; he was wrong.

....Happily, Clark oozes military. It's impossible to imagine the guy anywhere else. And that's the key thing for a Democrat right now. We've got a persistent advantage on domestic issues and the credibility we've built there is attached to the party, any nominee can use it. What we don't have is a party-wide credibility on national security issues; that needs to be brought my the nominee. Luckily, Clark brings it.

I'm a big supporter of Wesley Clark on domestic issues. He's far more enlightened than most Democrats on criminal justice issues (Kucinich excepted, but Kucinich has no chance):

I'm concerned about the lock-up policy, the 3-strikes policy, putting people in jails and the way we've treated people in prison. We've got to look seriously at the American penal system and what it does when it returns people.to the streets." Source: WBUR Public Radio interview Jun 19, 2003

Here's how he would amend the Patriot Act, in his own words:

I will suspend the portions of the Patriot Act that have to do with search and seizure law, and we'll go back to old way with probable cause and judges and warrants, and then we'll take the whole act back to the Congress for legislative review. We will have all the authority we need to protect the country from terrorists, but you can't win the war on terror by giving up the very freedoms we're fighting to protect.

On the death penalty: He's as close as we're going to get to an opponent of the death penalty. He's in favor of a moratorium and he's opposed except in extraordinary cases.

He's open to medical marijuana, although not a supporter.

On the military front, Clark said in 2003 that he'd fire Rumsfeld. He had a three point plan for catching Osama.

And for those who doubt his passion or ability to move a crowd, see my account of the reaction to his speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston last summer.