Wesley Clark, a former U.S. Army general and NATO supreme allied commander, said he joined the race for president after watching Bush make poor foreign policy decisions.

"I'm not running to bash George Bush," Clark said Sunday at the opening of his campaign office on Cannon Street in downtown Charleston. "I'm running to replace him."

If elected, Clark said he would work to have the United States work with, not separate from, its allies. Although he praised Bush's Thanksgiving visit with the troops in Iraq, he said the soldiers need more from Bush than a temporary boost in morale.

"What they really need is a president with a strategy for success who can get them out of there," Clark said. "He's proven to be a reckless radical. He took us to a war in Iraq that we didn't need to fight."

Lieberman, a U.S. senator from Connecticut who ran as former vice president Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election, told 75 black parishioners at Mount Horr AME Church on Yonge's Island that he wants "to restore faith-based values" to the presidential office.

While Bush has tried to capitalize on pushing faith-based values during his presidency, Lieberman asked, "Is it good values to do as this president did and not invest in education and health care?"

During a stop at The Vegetable Bin grocery store on Society Street, Lieberman filled one full shopping cart as a way to demonstrate the extra groceries a shopper could buy under his tax plan, in which, he said, 98 percent of taxpayers would receive tax cuts. For example, a married couple earning $50,000 a year could expect to save up to $500 more, he said.

Lieberman said his tax plan, first introduced in October, would bring greater fairness to the tax system by lowering taxes for the middle class and asking corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share. Some of his ideas include: resetting the top two income tax rates that Bush lowered, restoring the dividend tax that Bush repealed and reforming the estate tax that Bush repealed. Lieberman said his plan would include two of Bush's tax policies, the increase in the child tax credit and the elimination of the marriage penalty.

"I am the one Democrat who is fighting for tax cuts," Lieberman said.

Yonge's Island resident Joshua Washington said Lieberman has his vote.

"He speaks the language of common people," Washington said.

Clark received a similarly warm welcome from Kim Farris, a James Island resident, who was on the fence about who should get her support. Following Clark's speech, he not only had another vote but another volunteer.

"I think he's capable of beating who we now have in office," Farris said.

Lieberman and Clark are part of a nine-member pack of Democrats vying for the party nomination and a chance to challenge President George W. Bush in the 2004 General Election. South Carolina's Feb. 3 primary is the third of the year.

The other Democratic candidates are Carol Moseley Braun, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

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