Democrats Feeling Power Shortage

By DAVID LIGHTMAN
The Hartford Courant, April 29, 2001

WASHINGTON - After Catherine Bur appeared at a Democratic press conference last week to tell her horror story about the arsenic-poisoned water her family drank for 13 years, she was asked why President Clinton wasn't as much to blame for this problem as President Bush.

She thought for a second. "You know, I can't say Clinton helped me," the Michigan mother said. "This is just a problem in general."

Democrats standing nearby were expressionless. No matter how awful the outrage, no matter how clever the devices they use to attract media, no matter that it was the Clinton administration that wanted to solve the problem, it's difficult for Democrats to win.

That's how it goes in the first 100 days when you're completely out of power.

"It's hard," said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd District, who's in charge of coordinating House Democrats' messages to the public. "When you have the White House, you have the central point. Without it, you have to create your own megaphone."

That's an unfamiliar process for Democrats; it's been more than 46 years since the party lacked control of at least one of Washington's Big Three - the White House, the House and the Senate.

"It's the first time in a long time there's no obvious leader in the party," said Howard Gold, associate professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. When Republicans want to get weighty on an issue, it's easy. Not only can Bush issue a statement guaranteed to be analyzed by hundreds of reporters and officials, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., largely control what Congress takes up.

That Maginot line of sorts is made even more vexing for Democrats by the public single-mindedness of the Republican opposition, which with few exceptions is homogenous in its views and remarkably disciplined. Democrats, by contrast, speak with several, often disparate, voices. When the Pew Research Center asked on April 18-22 who leads the party, the most-mentioned figure was former Vice President Al Gore - but he was named by just 20 percent of respondents.

The party machinery itself is run by the energetic, effusive Terry McAuliffe, a man not universally liked within his party, partly because of his former fund-raising duties and the questions they raised.

In the hinterlands, there's another dynamic. At least a half-dozen party members are quietly crafting presidential campaigns, ranging from the moderate voices of Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh to the decidedly more liberal views of Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry.

In Washington, the Senate Democrats appear split, with some more conservative members bolstering Bush's positions. This was evident during the tax cut debate, when Georgia Sen. Zell Miller was an early and vocal supporter of Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan, and Louisiana Sen. John B. Breaux led an effort to win support for a slightly pared-down version.

Breaux got 14 others to join him earlier this month, voting with all 50 Republicans for a $1.18 trillion plan.

Lieberman spoke for some Democrats in saying that sum was bloated.A trillion-dollar cut, he said, "is risky business. It puts us on a road to deficits and higher interest rates."

That's Lieberman's view, but it's not the party's.What particularly frustrates Democrats is how Bush keeps co-opting their issues. It's a tactic Clinton employed with the GOP - he was a strong advocate of beefing up police forces, for instance, which got him out front on the law-and-order issue Republicans had used to their advantage for 30 years.

Bush has done that with the traditionally Democratic issue of education. He's probably not going to spend as much as many Democrats want, and his idea for giving student vouchers to attend private school infuriates many in the party.

But Bush has signaled that he will not push hard for vouchers, and he is trying to reach agreement with Democrats on an education plan. That allowed Lott last week to go to the Senate floor to brag that "Education is the highest priority in America with the president."

Democrats are trying hard to strategize and respond. In the House, easily the most unified Democratic front, members have created "rapid response" teams. These are small groups of congressmen, each focused on a different issue, that meet regularly.

When a topic becomes hot news, the team is ready to talk to the media authoritatively on the subject. Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., has been an energetic, partisan voice; last week, for instance, he blasted Bush for naming "the most far right, anti-woman, anti-environment, wealthiest and best-connected Cabinet in a generation."

The party makes sure it starts most business days in the House with a series of one-minute speeches on a single topic. Members from all over the country will discuss taxes one day, education the next and so on.

In the Senate, the glue is Tom Daschle of South Dakota. He's the Senate Democratic Leader, cerebral and firm, able to talk details and politics at the same time. He holds regular press conferences offering the party view, usually with words far more measured than Gephardt's, a style that makes it hard for Republicans to demonize him.

The good news for Democrats is that history is on their side as they try to regain some power in 2002. The last time one party controlled the Big Three was in 1993 and 1994, when Clinton and the Democrats passed, without a single Republican vote, a massive deficit reduction package that raised taxes but eventually helped eradicate annual deficits.

The party then faltered when it tried to craft a health plan. Those issues led to the rise of Republican Newt Gingrich, who put a handful of easy-to-understand Republican ideas into the "Contract with America" and used it to gain control of both houses of Congress in 1994.

Similarly, after four years of all-Democratic rule, Republicans in 1980 were able to campaign against President Carter and House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill as overseers of an out-of-control government and inflation-riddled, overtaxed country. The GOP won the presidency and the Senate.

DeLauro says she is convinced that, soon enough, Bush will look insensitive and too beholden to far-right conservatives, and Democrats will be able to move right into the public's hearts by simply sticking to their message.

"American families need a president who is looking out for their interest, who stands up for them and who pursues policies that speak to the problems they face every day," she said. "Working- and middle-class families want a president who will address the concerns of all Americans."

So far, though, the public doesn't see where Democrats would do any better than Bush - and efforts to tell the story often get buried under Bush's louder voice or confused by political nuance.

And that could be the fate of Bur's arsenic tale - one in which her 4-month-old son was diagnosed with chronic ulcerative colitis as well as abnormally low weight and height. "I didn't know at the time that we were drinking and cooking with poison," Bur said.

Bush has reversed a Clinton edict that would reduce arsenic levels in water by later in the decade. Asked why Clinton did not act sooner, DeLauro said that often, when Democrats wanted to put health and safety regulations into effect, Republicans who controlled Congress insisted on more studies.

Bur does not know or care about all the political maneuvering. She just wants something done, and whoever helps will get her loyalty. "It's an extremely hard problem to fix," Bur said, "and at this point, I'm not faulting anyone."

Democrats this week are spending $100,000 this week to run ads blasting Bush, and they feature a little girl innocently and sarcastically asking for more arsenic in her water.

Bush, on the other hand, is promising action. He said April 18 there would be a new standard for arsenic in water within nine months.

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2001