LEXINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark on Friday delivered the keynote address for the spring kickoff of Washington & Lee University’s 100th anniversary Mock Convention and said later that he has not ruled out a 2008 presidential run.

Clark, a late entry into the Democratic Party’s 2004 field, said the war in Iraq will be the issue on which the next presidential election turns and America has a lot of work to do to restore its moral standing in the world.

“This issue is not going away,” Clark told a W&L audience of students who on Jan. 25 and 26 plan to hold a mock convention to accurately predict what each state will do and which candidate Democrats will nominate next year.

“Iraq is the issue on which this election is likely to revolve unless there’s another terror attack,” he said.

After speaking, hinting that other candidates might emerge and answering questions for an hour, Clark told reporters, “I haven’t said I’m not running.” “I’ve thought about it,” he said when pressed. “I think every day about running, but, as I said, I haven’t said that I won’t.”

The former commander of U.S. military forces in Europe and of NATO in the late 1990s added, “I am campaigning for a strong Southern strategy for the Democratic Party and for a strong national security platform.”

Clark acknowledged that he made a mistake four years ago by ducking the Iowa caucuses.

“It was a strategic mistake, and more or less an inevitable mistake as the result of starting so late,” he said. He announced as a presidential candidate on Sept. 17, 2003.

“What emerged was a strategy that said skip Iowa, finish third or fourth in New Hampshire and then win in the South,” Clark said.

In looking at the field of candidates, he told students he would look for “someone who has the capacity to work hard and to grow. … Show me someone who’s got talent, who can communicate and is willing to put in the ceaseless hours, take the pounding and grow.”

Before jumping into the field in 2003, Clark said he had lunch with former Gov. Mark R. Warner to seek his advice.

“He said, ‘Don’t go into it unless you are prepared to lose,’” Clark recalled. “‘You have to understand that in politics, what you can lose is everything. You can lose the election. You can lose your money. You can lose your job, your profession, your friends, your family, your reputation. You can lose everything. The sort of loss is unlimited. And so my advice to you is if you can live without it, don’t do it.’”

Clark added, “Well, he couldn’t live without it and I guess I couldn’t live without it either.”

Warner decided early on to abandon his bid for a 2008 nomination for president after correctly determining that it would be a national security election, Clark said.