Democrats searching for ways to offset Bush's new strength

Monday, October 15, 2001

By STEVEN THOMMA Knight Ridder Newspapers

-- NORTH CONWAY, N.H.

After a month of wartime unity and stifled dissent, Democrats are charting a careful course toward challenging a now-formidable president and his party for control of the Congress next year and for the White House in 2004.

For the foreseeable future, they will support President Bush's stewardship of the war on terrorism. But they will slowly start reminding voters that just as the government fights to safeguard their lives, it also should fight to safeguard their livelihoods, preferably with Democratic ideas.

"We're with Bush 1,000 percent," said Steve Rosenthal, political director for the AFL-CIO, as he took a break from helping the New Hampshire AFL-CIO plan political strategy over the weekend. "But it's important to begin laying the foundations for 2002 and 2004."

One of the first to do that was Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who used a strong speech to labor leaders here to signal his strategy.

"This is not a time for partisanship," said Kerry, one of several Democrats weighing a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. But after speaking somberly of the lives lost on Sept. 11 and a nation united in response, Kerry argued that the country has other business in addition to the war on terrorism.

"The measure of the national security of this country is not just in the muzzle of a gun," Kerry said Saturday. "Our strength is defined also by the quality of our education, and the safety of our children, and healthcare and job security and long-term retirement security."

Kerry delivered his speech in a small state with big political clout: It anticipates a close Senate contest next year that will help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate; it will hold the first primary to pick the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee; and it is typically a competitive state in tight general election campaigns.

To overcome the patriotic appeal that Bush and his party can rally, Democrats must direct public attention to other issues.

"If they can split the agenda, seal off the issue of terrorism and foreign policy, and concentrate on the domestic side, then they have room to criticize Bush," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. "They have to keep him from wrapping himself in the flag. That can be very powerful for the president. They have to keep the terror issue in a box so the president can't use it to override everything else."

There already is evidence of Bush's anti-terror appeal spilling over into electoral politics, Rosenthal said. In Oklahoma, he said, an anti-union referendum was approved after Republican Gov. Frank Keating called for voters to "stand up to freedom." And in New Jersey's race for governor, Republican Bret Schundler has mailed voters pictures of himself with Bush and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Yet history strongly suggests that wartime presidents can lose ground quickly to an opposition party ready to capitalize on complaints from the home front. Among leaders whose party lost seats in Congress: Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson during World War I, Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, and Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam.

New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen hopes to help repeat that history next year by winning the Senate seat now held by Republican Bob Smith.

Taking her turn before labor leaders here, Shaheen didn't even mention Bush. Instead, she signaled that her campaign will focus on an economy turned shaky in a state where two paper mills have recently shut down and where high-tech jobs are jeopardized by a nationwide slowdown.

With unemployment in New Hampshire up 41 percent since June, she said, "we need to see some action at the federal level."

Ultimately, Democrats believe the elections of 2002 and 2004 will be decided more by the economy than the war. Many already are working to paint Bush as a friend to the wealthy and enemy of the working class -- just as they did to his father before he was defeated for reelection in 1992.

Robert McIntyre, president of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research center and an influential voice in Democratic Party circles, complained that Bush is using the emergency to push for tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

In contrast, McIntyre said, Abraham Lincoln imposed new taxes on the wealthy to finance the Civil War, and Franklin Roosevelt raised taxes to finance World War II.

"Our president's supply-side zeal to co-opt our national emergency by showering more tax breaks on corporations and the wealthy must be resisted," McIntyre said.

"The economy always plays a major role in a presidential race," said New Hampshire Democratic party Chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan.

"Certainly, there is a great deal of support for how George W. Bush has handled the terrorism situation. It's front and center right now for everyone and it will remain a priority in the minds of the voters. At the same time, there are going to be other priorities, domestic priorities. And there we are going to see differences between Republicans and Democrats."

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2001