Washington — Wesley Clark, the novice politician with four-star military credentials, abandoned his presidential bid Tuesday after two third-places finishes in the South, the Associated Press has learned.
The retired Army general will return to Little Rock, Ark., on Wednesday to announce his departure from the race, said a senior adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Clark will pledge to work closely with the Democratic Party to support the nominee and other candidates across the country, the adviser said.
Mr. Clark, 59, entered the race in September, a late start for a neophyte campaigner, but he quickly rose to the top of polls of Democrats and others considering an alternative to President Bush. He decided to skip the Iowa caucuses to focus all of his efforts on New Hampshire.
In appealing to voters, Mr. Clark relied almost entirely on his 34 years in military service, which included serving as supreme allied commander of NATO. He promoted his wartime record, from being wounded in Vietnam in 1970 to running the bombing campaign in the war in Kosovo in 1999, as the kind of experience needed with American soldiers in Iraq and concerns about security at home.
Supporters touted other qualities — his Southern roots and his status as a Washington outsider — they contended that made Mr. Clark the candidate most likely to defeat Mr. Bush. Plus, he provided another forceful voice in condemning the war in Iraq, which he frequently called unnecessary, reckless and wrong.
"I would not have gone into Iraq in the first place," he said. "My position was that Iraq was not an imminent threat. I would have concentrated on Osama bin Laden."
For a latecomer, Mr. Clark had enormous fund-raising success. He raised nearly $15-million (U.S.) in 2003 and started January with at least $10-million left and the prospect of raising nearly $1-million a week as the first elections neared.
Yet Mr. Clark's inexperience as a candidate caused him problems. On the first full day of his campaign, Mr. Clark said he probably would have voted for the Bush-backed Iraq resolution but then, a day later, insisted he never would have voted "for this war." His supporters were left confused while his detractors grew elated. Questions about his stand on the war in Iraq never ceased.
"I bobbled the question," he later told The Associated Press. "Even Rhodes scholars make mistakes."
Still, he won Oklahoma's primary, finished second in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, shining a light on what Democrats' believe is Mr. Bush's vulnerability on foreign policy.
