We may be getting a two-man race after all.

While Dean looks more and more inevitable under most reasonable scenarios, Wes Clark is finally making his moves in the polls--nationally, and in New Hampshire.

The latest national poll showing striking gains comes from Rasmussen (via Kos -- Kos has everything politico). Dean is still ahead, but not by much. In the past week, Clark has gained four points--from 13-17--but it's mostly been at Dean's expense. They've gone from a 10-point gap to just 4.

And Clark is definitely solidifying his position as The Dean Alternative. A week ago he was just a point ahead of two rivals, now he's virtually double the closest competitor (other than Dean).

In New Hampshire, Clark is way, way further behind, but gaining much faster. The ARG tracking poll shows him gaining 8 points in the past week, from 12% to 20%. A bit of that has come from Dean, who dropped from 39% to 35%. Dean still holds an extraordinary margin of nearly two-to-one, but that's a lot better for Clark than more than three-to-one.

Perhaps more importantly, he has also emerged as the clear Dean Alternative in New Hampshire. He finally passed quasi-favorite-son Kerry for second place in the past week, and already commands double his support (20% to 10%). Voters there seem to be giving up on Kerry, and flocking to Clark.

You can see the latest numbers and a little analysis from ARG here, or the day-by-day movement here.

Why the sudden surge? I can't explain the timing, but I've always thought Wes Clark was a force to be reckoned with, and perhaps he finally got his pitch right and started connecting. (Or maybe it's those new sweaters that so much of the media seems to be mesmerized by. They made the front page of the Times last week.)

It probably also has something to do with all the flack Dean has been taking. The competition finally circled him this month and trained all the ammo they had on the same guy. And maybe supporters of the other guys have finally realized how hopeless their candidacies are and moved on to someone with a plausible chance to beat Dean--or Bush. Or was it the Madona endorsement?

In New Hampshire, Kos has been offering another reason the past several days: aside from the impotent force of Joe Lieberman, Clark has the whole state to himself. The rest of the pack is battling it out in Iowa, and those two skipped the state to focus on New Hampshire. Sounds reasonable. Doesn't account for his entire pickup--especially since everyone is still running TV ads--but some of it.

But one week from today, Iowa could change everything. If Dean can upset Gep on his home turf, he'll get a huge boost going into New Hampshire, and may well stop Clark's rise dead in its tracks. If he fails, the Stop Dean idea could gain momentum. He'll suddenly look much less invincible.

Either way, Clark will be frozen out of the media coverage, unless the press decides to run with the Dean Is Crumbling storyline, and chooses Clark as his potential vanquisher.

Every day the picture changes, but every day it leads more to the same conclusion: everything could hinge on Iowa.

Which leads me to one more plug for joining me in Iowa to make sure Dean wins. I had not intended to do it in this post, but since I ended up here:

Go here to sign up to join the Iowa assault, whether or not you want to be part of my (gay) subgroup. Then, if you want to join our big gay army (for dean), use our GROUP ID NUMBER is 1121 and our GROUP NAME RAINBOW STORM.  Or read my pitch on why I'm going here.)

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Note: Edwards has also surged out of obscurity in the national, NH and Iowa polls the past week, but he's still far behind a shitload of others. Way too little, too late for him.

Update:

Kos just added new poll numbers from SUSA adding more confirmation to Clark's rise.

They show Clark leaping ahead by seven points in Arizona--a key primary the week after New Hampshire--and a much tighter race than the other polls in New Hampshire. There they have Dean falling ten points since Dec 14-16, and Clark rising 15 in the same time. SUSA's latest NH results (previous results in parenthesis:

Dean 35 (45)

Clark 26 (11)

Kerry 13 (15)

Wesley Clark didn't ask to testify at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial, he was called by the prosecution. But he will be the most senior U.S. official to testify, and it did offer a nice boost for his campaign--well beyond the price of losing a few days during a crucial month.

From an AP story just posted about his first day of testimony:

"The fact that Wesley Clark is going to testify in the middle of the primaries is fairly amazing," said professor Michael Scharf, the author of several books on the tribunal.

"Clark is gambling that this will give him national and international press attention just at the time he needs it for the primaries. It will enable him to look very patriotic, very presidential," he said in a telephone interview.

But timing is everything. A week ago, it might have grabbed major press attention. The morning after Saddam's capture, a footnote.

Major bummer for him. But the story is kind of interesting, by AP standards. (It's mostly about the trial, not the campaign). You might have a look.

Mildly disturbing/annoying Salon cover story today, titled:

Clark: Howard Dean can't win

Key quote:

"I don't think the Democratic Party can win without carrying a heavy experience in national security affairs into the campaign," he told Salon in a phone interview last week. "And that experience can't be in a vice president."

I don't think that's going to help us beat Bush, but I guess he's gotta do what he's gotta do. The electability issue is about the only card Wes Clark seems to have at the moment. Not a strong card, but maybe a card.

Wesley Clark is really counting on winning a bunch of the Feb. 3 primaries. Big new ad-buy continues to indicate that strategy.

He must be praying Gephardt will deprive Howard Dean of a one-two Iowa-New Hampshire punch, or at least that he doesn't use it to roll over the next round. It could get really interesting if Dean wins the first two, but then Clark wins several the next week.

Of course the problem of that scenario is this is such a momentum game, it's going to be very hard for Clark to pull that off if Dean gets both the first two. Maybe he thinks that if he goes into NH night leading enough in following-week states, the press won't write him off and his lead won't crumble.

Risky strategy, but all he's got at this point.

Highlights from AP:

Clark's campaign is spending about $200,000 in each state -- South Carolina and Oklahoma beginning Tuesday and Arizona later this week -- to run his 60-second biographical ad that highlights his military career. . .

Campaign advisers say internal polling shows Clark either tied with or leading candidates at the top of polls in those states, and the ads are meant to boost voter knowledge of Clark, who entered the campaign Sept. 17.

Well, that's the end of his chances against Shrub.

Maybe not, but that definitely tips the balance toward Howard Dean as the stronger competitor to Bush. Dean would be able to spend all spring and summer, Wes Clark would not.

But it will help Clark get through the primaries, assuming voters don't chose on that basis--and I doubt many will, but Dean has been expert before at making powerful issues out of important issues most people never paid attention to.

From AP:

Clark Opts Into Presidential Public Financing System
Kerry Close to Decision on Opting Out

... The decision announced Thursday means Clark will be limited to $45 million in overall primary spending and face state-by-state spending caps. He will be eligible for up to about $19 million in government funding, money that would have been hard to make up given his late fund-raising start.

"It's a pragmatic decision at this point," Clark said Friday morning in Concord, N.H., where he officially filed for the Jan. 27 primary. "Maybe if lightning strikes, I'd have to reconsider." . . .

Clark has been seeking to capitalize on Dean's decision to opt out of the post-Watergate system. Clark campaign chairman Eli Segal sent a donor appeal Thursday noting Dean's recent decision and the possibility that Kerry will follow.

That's crappy: give someone more chance to beat Dean for the nom--I see him as the only real threat to Dean--but then weaker to knock off the real enemy if he does. Wes Clark needs to reconsider.

Lengthy piece by Joanna Weiss in today's Boston Globe:

Late entry, strong start, long haul

Clark searching for momentum

It's thoughtful, insightful and nicely balanced. The good news for Wes Clark:

Events of the past week present an opportunity for Clark. As Dean consolidates support, his opponents within the party leadership might be moved to settle on an alternative they deem more electable. And as Senator John F. Kerry's campaign struggles to find a footing, Clark, with his southern roots and foreign policy background, could be in a position to fill that role.

Yup. That's definitely his opening. And that's why I've been so gleeful about Kerry's fade. I'm a big Howard Dean supporter as you probably noticed by now, but the guy needs to be tested, needs to be toughened up as much as possible. The last year and a half of campaigning have made him so much stronger than he started out, but he's going to need all he can get going up against Karl Rove.

And I love Wesley Clark, too, and I'd like to see the two go head to head, and may the strongest challenger win. All those other guys I've had a look at: they're way too weak to take on an incumbent. So let's duke it out boys, let's get those dwarves out of the way so Dean and Clark can mix it up one on one.

Back to the Globe piece: Nice capsule of the current strategy, which you're probably aware of:

Aides hope to finish third or a close fourth in New Hampshire, where they will start running their first television ads within weeks. But they see their make-or-break day a week later, on Feb. 3, when seven states will hold primaries. Some of Clark's staffers are dispersing to the states he mentioned, hoping to establish him as an alternative to Dean, whose Yankee demeanor could play poorly in the South and West.

The problem with the strategy:

But some political analysts say the Feb. 3 strategy is a gamble, because the primary process relies on momentum: Strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire could propel Dean toward success down the line.

The real challenge:

The rigors of a three-decade Army career might color Clark's public persona, as well. He's no firebrand on the stump. His debate performances have been cautious. By nature, he is inclined to long answers instead of digestible soundbites. Aides have dubbed his town hall meetings "Conversations with Clark," but they can be one-sided; at a Georgia event last week, Clark talked for so long that there was time for only two questions from the audience.

And some Clark supporters say they ache to see more personality and humor in Clark's earnest public appearances.

"I just think he's so cerebral that it's hard for him," said Ostroy, the Manhattan supporter. "Sometimes people like that, they never turn it off. They're always being that bright guy, and they never just get down and dirty and yuk it up. . . . You just want to put your arm around him and say, `Wesley! Lighten up, dude!' "

That's what it's all about. All the damn beltway boys always get so damn bogged down in the process. All that takes care of itself if somebody really sparks the public imaginaton. Or it can.

Really nice column this morning from Frank Rich, as usual. He returned to the NYT's Sunday Arts section earlier this year, where he has been even better than he was on the op-ed page. If you have not been reading his column, you're missing out. You can find it on the paper copy, or free online for a week. Every Sunday.

(And I have a special link to him in the left column. It's a dynamic search which always brings up his most recent work, latest on top.)

The title of today's piece--Pfc. Jessica Lynch Isn't Rambo Anymore--thoroughly turned me off. I have seen and read far too much about that bit player already. But of course he transcended 99% of what had been written before, and used the coverage of her story to tell a much broader tale.

My favorite moment, concerning the suprisingly accurate documdrama NBC is airing tonight:

What does it say that "Saving Jessica Lynch" is more candid than much of the reportage on the war?

And the reason comes just a few lines later:

The movie even pays a dramatic price for its integrity; a reasonable approximation of the truth is less exciting than the bogus reports of Lynch-as-John Wayne.

He's just as powerful when he widens his scope to bring in the Bush Administration's attempts to choreograph this quagmire of a war:

In broadcasting the first reports of "Chinook Down" last Sunday morning, the normally unflappable Bob Schieffer of CBS News raised his voice as he said, "If this is winning, you have to ask the question: How much more of this winning can we stand?" Later that day, on ABC's "World News Tonight," the correspondent John Berman captured a "M*A*S*H" moment when a military medic attending the American wounded looked directly at the camera and said, " `All major combat operations have ceased' " — after which he winked and, with a roll of his eyes, added a sarcastic, "Right!"

And he ends on his usual trenchant note:

Two weeks ago, after spending the day visiting the wounded at Walter Reed, the same hospital where Private Lynch recuperated upon returning to the United States, Cher, of all people, crystallized the game plan. She called into C-Span to tell of her experience talking with "a boy about 19 or 20 who had lost both his arms" and then asked: "Why are none of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer, the president — why aren't they taking pictures with all these guys? Because I don't understand why these guys are so hidden and why there aren't pictures of them."

The answer is clear enough: the fewer of these images we see, someone hopes, the less likely we'll realize the story that goes with them. Certainly the new plot they tell is simple enough: what began as a war at a time of our choosing has become a war at the time of the enemy's choosing. It may be asking too much of even a patriot like Private Lynch to pretty up this picture as she takes her show on the road. 

I'm about to leave for Chicago until Friday, Nov 7.

Hopefully I'll get Radio's stupid remote-access working by then, but so far I can't so I may be MIA until then.

But I can always add to the comments, so check in to the comments from this post from time to time. I'll use it as a really shitty blog till then. Feel free to jump in.

The one topic I'll keep separate is Survivor--since we already have a group commenting there each week. I have a separate post set up for that right after this one.

And if the remote access works, I'll update this post to let you know, and never mind.

Either way I'll be incredibly busy and can't keep up to my regular blogging schedule, but will come by when I can. Look for me especially this coming weekend.

I'll miss you.