Not Your Sweetie

Chauffeured by the General
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Posted to Robbedvoter's weblog (News and Links) on Thu Jan 1st, 2004 at 10:32:42 AM EST


Chauffeured By The General
Thu, Sep 18, 2003
http://www.arkansasnews.com/279853299867856.bsp
Column By John Brummett

Arkansas News Bureau

I'd played my regular Saturday morning
tennis match in the rain-cooled and fall-like weather.
I thought I'd grab breakfast at the Waffle
House off Cantrell. I figured everyone else would
be in front of a television set preparing
to watch the Hogs and Horns and that I'd avail myself
of sweaty solitude at the end of the
counter.

I swiveled from my hash browns to see a man
in military fatigues headed toward me. It
turned out to be one of the best ol' boys
in Arkansas politics.

That would be John Edwards. I do not mean
the one from North Carolina running poorly for
president. I mean the young lawyer from the
farm community of Scott east of Little Rock who
worked for years as a trusted aide of David
Pryor and later Dale Bumpers. He ran well
himself for the Democratic nomination for
Congress in the 2nd District, but got overtaken in
that endeavor by the Vic Snyder phenomenon.
Weekend guard duty explained his getup.

As fate would have it, Edwards told me, he
had wound up a year or two before representing
Wesley Clark in a legal matter. So, after a
political career providing intimacy with Pryor and
Bumpers and some connection to Bill
Clinton, he remarkably found himself again closely
connected to a major political figure from
Arkansas who might run for president.

He said there were two things I needed to
know. One was that the general was an
uncommonly regular guy. "You don't have to
bring him his coffee in a fancy cup. He gets up
and gets his own, and a refill for you."
The other was that Clark believed in "parallel
planning," meaning to proceed on two
options as if already decided in favor of each, so that
he would be prepared to go either way when
the time came. He said he leaned toward
thinking Clark would run, but that I should
not be overly influenced by the general's making
all the seeming preparations.

Three mornings later I was with a little
media herd outside the front door of the state
Democratic Party headquarters. At 9 o'clock
the night before, Clark had telephoned Ron
Oliver, the state Democratic chairman,
asking if Oliver could get some party folks together
the next morning so that he could talk to
them.

What Clark was saying inside -- to steady
applause, which I could hear when I wandered
around back -- was, essentially, that he was
running for the Democratic presidential
nomination and would formally announce it
the next day.

The parallel plans had merged.

Then when Clark stepped out front to face
the assault of cameras, microphones and inane
questions, I saw behind him the proud face
of John Edwards, this time in a business suit.

Edwards grinned and came around to chat. "I
think he's up to something, don't you?" he
asked. Edwards said he'd agreed to work in
the campaign.

I asked Edwards if it was true, as I'd
heard, that the little black Mazda Miata with a hardtop
attachment parked to the side of the
headquarters was the general's vehicle, and that Clark
was driving himself.

"Yes, and I'm riding with him," Edwards
said. "I'm getting chauffeured by a four-star general.
I told you about him."

I said we'd find out how Clark, possessed
of perhaps the world's greatest resume, would
perform in the world of retail politics.
"Well," Edwards replied, "he made it through Ranger
school, and that's pretty tough."

I mentioned the morning's Washington Post,
which reported that some in the Clinton White
House had found Clark controlling and
abrasive. Edwards scoffed.

The media inquiries ended and the general
strode toward his Miata, looking around in search
of Edwards and asking, "Where's John?" Then
Clark got in the driver's side of the tiny car,
and Edwards took the passenger side.

The last I saw, the Miata jumped a bit as
the general took the five-speed transmission from
first to second.

He and his sidekick were off and running.