Homme versus hombre. Clark may be the hombre, but Kerry's the homme, the "homme serioux"--according to Nixon in Purgatory:

Q: How did Kerry manage to turn it around?

RN: You want me to say "electability" like all those jackasses yakkin' it up on cable. That's what Rockefeller tried on me, but only the hacks and the hot partisans put electability first. It's one element, but it can get loused up in fluctuating mano a mano polls, and it vanishes as an asset when the election campaign begins. No, Kerry came back because he's an homme serioux — that's French for a man with gravitas — which is what people want, and it doesn't matter that he has a face like a horse.

(It's sérieux, not "serioux," by the way. Can't they check these things?)