Wesley Clark Bows Out

Wesley Clark dropped out of the race for the White House on Wednesday, a retired four-time general unable to command significant support as a first-time presidential candidate.

"This is the end of the campaign for the presidency," Clark told supporters in his home state of Arkansas.

Drawn into the campaign by an Internet-based "Draft Clark" movement, Clark left the race after worse-than-expected finishes in Tennessee and Virginia.

He did not immediately throw his support behind any other candidate.

"Our country is well-served by John Kerry and John Edwards and Howard Dean and I applaud them," Clark said when announcing his departure from the race at The Peabody hotel in downtown Little Rock.

Campaign adviser Matt Bennett said earlier Wednesday that Clark withdrew for a number of reasons.

"The decision was made on a number of factors, not just the order of finish. He saw the numbers and thought about it a bit after the speech was out of the way."

Clark, who won only one of 14 contests, was under intense pressure to drop out because of John Kerry's success and a desire by party leaders for a quick end to a nominating season he has come to dominate.

"The mountain got too steep to climb," Bennett said.

The decision ends a five-month run by Clark, his first for elective office, who hoped his military background and Southern roots would sell with swing voters as well as in the South.

Of the contests to date, Clark was only able to squeeze out a narrow victory in Oklahoma. The final blow came after third-place finishes Tuesday in primaries in Virginia and Tennessee, states that were part of the Southern strategy he thought would ride him to the nomination. Clark had hoped to emerge as a Southern challenger to the front-running Massachusetts senator, but Tuesday's outcome erased any hope of that happening. He got 23 percent of the vote in Tennessee, but only 9 percent in Virginia.

Still, the decision to quit was hard for a candidate described by aides as competitive and reluctant to admit defeat. He retreated for a late-night dinner with his family after reaching his decision.

"He's at peace with it. He's obviously disappointed," Bennett said.

Aides said Clark would remain active in the campaign by stumping for Democrats in the South and other swing states and serving as an adviser on national security issues.

He is the fifth candidate to drop out. Five remain: Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton.

New to politics, Clark may still have a future. At 59, he is young enough for another race and, with his military experience, he might fit on a wartime Democratic ticket.

Clark became a candidate in September, late 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 his efforts on New Hampshire, a move that some friends and family now call a mistake.

In appealing to voters, 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 - that they contended made Clark the candidate most likely to defeat President Bush. Plus, he provided another forceful voice in condemning the war in Iraq, which he frequently called unnecessary, reckless and wrong.

Clark had enormous fund-raising success for a latecomer, raising nearly $15 million in 2003. He started January with at least $10 million left and the prospect of raising millions more.

Yet his inexperience as a candidate caused him problems. On the first full day of his campaign, 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.