Blair Clark - Career in Politics

Career in Politics

Clark first met Senator Eugene McCarthy in 1965 at a party at Walter Lippmann's house in Washington, D.C. Two years later, when McCarthy announced that he would challenge President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primaries as an anti-war candidate, Clark wrote to McCarthy from London to express his support. With his friend Theodore H. White, Clark traveled to Chicago in December 1967 to hear McCarthy address the Conference of Concerned Democrats, a group of antiwar activists. Soon after meeting in Chicago, McCarthy asked Clark to be his campaign manager.

In his new position within the campaign, Clark set about convincing McCarthy to enter the New Hampshire primary. McCarthy had initially planned to skip New Hampshire and begin campaigning in Wisconsin. The case to run in New Hampshire was laid out by two members of the New Hampshire delegation of the Conference of Concerned Democrats: Dartmouth College official David C. Hoeh and St. Paul's School teacher (and future congressman) Gerry Studds. After more convincing from Clark, McCarthy decided that he would declare his entry to the New Hampshire primary. Hoeh and Studds took the titles of New Hampshire campaign director and coordinator, and Clark recruited the journalist Seymour Hersh to be McCarthy's press secretary.

McCarthy's surprisingly strong showing in New Hampshire led to the rapid growth of his supporters, but the campaign was in increasing disarray. When Senator Robert Kennedy entered the race as a second anti-war candidate, Clark and other McCarthy advisers initially tried to broker an agreement with Kennedy to meet head-to-head only in the California primary, with both campaigns supporting the winner of that primary, but McCarthy flatly rejected the proposal. Bitterness between the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns only deepened after Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election and Hubert Humphrey emerged as the choice of the Democratic establishment. In the wake of Kennedy's assassination the night that he won the California primary, many Kennedy delegates to the 1968 Democratic National Convention refused to support McCarthy. McCarthy publicly conceded that Humphrey had enough delegates to win the nomination, a move that enraged Clark and other McCarthy supporters who felt that the candidate still had a chance of defeating Humphrey.

Clark's sister Anne Clark Martindell also attended the Democratic National Convention as a McCarthy supporter, launching her career in politics and public service. She would go on to serve in the New Jersey Senate and as United States Ambassador to New Zealand.

Later Clark became treasurer of the New Democratic Coalition, a group of disaffected liberals from the 1968 campaign. When the Watergate break-in occurred, Clark was the Democratic National Committee's communications director.

In 2000, Clark died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey at the age of 82.