It is a bit of a truism around the comic collecting circles. Specially if you were a kid in the early nineties. During the silver age it was more or less the opposite. Silver Age Clark is but a persona created by Superman so he can superman better, while post-Man of Steel Clark is the actual person who created Superman so he gets a chance to actually be Clark. Silver Age Superman's perfect life is one in a Krypton that never exploded, while Post-MoS Clark asks Lois to marry him before telling her his secret because he wanted to know she wanted to marry "the real him".
This is also the reason I didn't vote Chris. He is a fantastic silver age superman, but part of me rejects that. To me the best Supes is a Clark. Henry and Brandon could have been very great ones, and certainly deserved a better script. Tom's just lacks that optimism and is a bit whinny part of the time. Tyler's is kinda a bit there, but the script is a bit on the weak side and he fails to sell the duality as plausible. Then I remember that Dean Cain is basically my childhood Superman and that his show is indirectly responsible for my country having a geeky subculture supported by a geeky industry and it is a no-brainer. His Clark is clearly that optimist boy-scout at heart, and his Supes is clearly Clark having fun wile still remaining plausible that people could be mistaken to think of him as two people. Funnily the hairstyles are reversed from the Christopher Reeves depiction n_n.