Yesterday morning I got an email from WesPAC, the Political Action Committee set up by Wesley Clark after he dropped out of the presidential race, inviting me to join the General and Senator Patty Murray for campaign events in the state of Washington for today. As an Oregon resident, I was at first reluctant to even open the email, but my intuitions led me to read it, and boy am I happy.

In an event deemed as a "Southwest Washington Defense Contractors Briefing" in a museum at a military base in Vancouver, Washington, the mayor of the city introduced Clark, who had some great things to say about the state's senior Senator. To begin, he thanked his supporters in the audience for helping out in his campaign (and specifically thanked me for wearing a "Clark04" shirt). Next, Clark spoke in his usually rousing fashion about Murray's staunch support for both the military and the veteran community.

Murray proceded to speak about the impact a number of small businesses in the area are having upon military technology. She introduced four businesses that have received appropriations to create new military and health innovations. After presenting their inventions, each small business owner thanked Senator Murray for getting them the seed money for their projects so they could create hundreds of new jobs in the region.

After the 75 minute event, the roughly 20 Clark supporters who showed up to the event (in addition to local businessmen and press) went to greet the General (myself included). I had the opportunity to speak for a couple of minutes to Gert Clark (his wife) about some mutual acquaintances, and I thanked her for allowing her husband to run. Later, I spoke to Clark himself about how I hope he will continue his quest to help America, even if he is no longer running for President. Finally, I exchanged information with Catherine Grunden, the Executive Director of WesPAC, to see if we could set up an event in the near future.

On his way out, Clark was stopped by a couple of the local media outlets to be interviewed about national and some local issues. Particularly interesting was his answer to a question regarding Bush's proposed troop realignment.

"It's bad strategy and bad politics probably, too."

He continued to say that at this time of delicate negotiations with China, Japan, and other nations over North Korean nuclear ambitions, it would be disastrous to pull out troops from the Korean Peninsula. What is more, it would be bad policy to merely divert troops to Iraq. Finally, he said that "we're going the wrong way in this country" and that we need to elect John Kerry and Patty Murray to make real change.

As I wrote earlier about General Clark,

"While people rightfully credit Howard Dean with reinvigorating the Democratic Party, too few give Wesley Clark his just due for once again allowing Democrats to be strong on defense. What is more, Clark's constant embrace of the flag (a tactic he deftly used during tonight's speech) helped remind us that we are all Americans.

"When the annals of this campaign are written in the months and years to come, I hope that historians will recognize the service Wes Clark provided to the Democratic Party. I cannot tell you how many people I met in the Draft Clark movement, and later when it became Clark for President, who had not participated in Democratic politics before, and the countless who had not voted previously. Though his detractors might say that he was merely a vanity candidate--a tool of the Clintons--and no more than a modern day Alexander Haig, I strongly disagree.

"Wes Clark was an extremely positive force within the Democratic Party who changed the nature of the campaign--and thus the party--for the better. He made it OK for a Democrat to embrace the flag, to honor the veterans in the audience, and to attack the President on National Security (yes, some Democrats had done this before, but none had done so with the same credibility as a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO).

"I believe it would strongly behoove John Kerry to utilize Clark in the Midwest, and especially in rural areas (remember, he won the Oklahoma primary on the basis of his rural support, even edging out John Edwards), and I hope that General Wesley Clark remains a part of Democratic politics in the years to come."

I'm glad to see that Senator Patty Murray is properly using the General, and I hope Kerry will continue to feature him in his campaign as well.