Bush Squarely in Democrats’ Sights

WASHINGTON â€”  With the capital on high alert and the country bracing for a possible war, leading Democrats sounded an alarm of a different sort Friday, describing a nation buckling under a bad economy and burdened by an indifferent White House.

The occasion was the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee, bringing together the hardest of the party’s hard-core. And the tone could not have been more different from a year ago, when President Bush’s popularity was stratospheric following his response to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

As a quartet of presidential hopefuls auditioned before an audience of several hundred party activists, Osama bin Laden was a source of mirth, not menace. Bush was reviled, not respected. And it took two words to get a big laugh: duct tape.

There were a few discordant moments, most notably surrounding the prospect of war with Iraq and the support the administration has gotten from two of the Democrats seeking the White House, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

“Shame!� a heckler yelled at Gephardt as he defended his role crafting the resolution Congress passed in October that authorized use of force against Iraq.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, another of the presidential contenders, all but attacked his opponents as sellouts, jibing, “I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.�

For the most part, however, the candidates, including former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, kept a common enemy in their sights, peppering the president with derision and a welter of dismal economic statistics.

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe ticked them off: 2 million jobs lost since Bush took office; 8 million jobless Americans; $178 billion in 401(k) losses in 2001; $2.86 trillion in wealth vanished from the stock market in 2002.

“The nation’s budget surplus [is] harder to find these days than Osama bin Laden,� McAuliffe said, to whoops from the crowd filling the ballroom of a hotel a few blocks from the Capitol. “All the duct tape in the world can’t repair the damage that George Bush has done to the economy. Plastic sheets won’t cover the hole George Bush has blown in the budget.�

The presidential candidates were a bit more measured in their rhetoric, but no less harsh in their assessments. Allotted 10 minutes each, they found fault with virtually everything Bush has touched, from the economy to the environment to education. (Anticipating as much, Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot issued an “open letter� to Democrats a few hours before they convened, saying the American people want “solutions, not finger pointing.�)

Lieberman, the party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, accused Bush of breaking a slew of campaign promises, including his vow to set a new, less antagonistic tone in Washington.

Gephardt contrasted his humble upbringing with Bush’s background, and said the country needs a president “who understands the life experience of ordinary Americans.�

Dean asserted Bush was playing racial politics by opposing affirmative action programs, and Moseley-Braun claimed he was robbing future generations to pay for tax cuts.

More striking was the Democrats’ willingness to attack Bush on his perceived area of greatest strength: defense and the war against terrorism at home and abroad. It was more awkward for some than others.

Lieberman, the most hawkish of the Democratic hopefuls, defended his support for a war against Iraq as a matter of conscience. “[Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction must be destroyed sooner rather than later because sooner or later, if we do not, they will be used against us,� Lieberman said to a roomful of silence.

At the same time, he condemned Bush for pursuing a “go-it-alone� foreign policy that has alienated U.S. allies.

Gephardt made much the same argument, defending his stand on Iraq while accusing Bush of having a “bullying� foreign policy.

Dean and Moseley-Braun had a much easier time of it. They drew standing ovations by reiterating their stand against what Moseley-Braun called “a mad rush to preemptive, unilateral military action.�

“Duct tape is no substitute for diplomacy,� she said, “and the saber rattling that has made us all hostages to fear must stop.�

The candidates found common -- and more easily navigable -- ground on the matter of homeland security, asserting the Bush administration has short-changed local police and fire departments in their front-line efforts to thwart terrorism. Racicot disputed that in his preemptive statement.

“Suggestions that Republicans have turned a blind eye to the war on terrorism are not only spurious, they fail to advance the debate or allay the anxieties we face as Americans,� the national GOP chairman said.

In recent months, as Bush’s approval ratings in the polls have settled to the more earthly 50%-60% range, there has been a palpable shift in the prevailing political wisdom, suggesting that the 2004 election may be considerably more competitive than Democrats once thought.

The swelling field of the party’s presidential hopefuls, now eight and possibly growing, was also a source of some humor at Friday’s gathering of the Democrats’ governing body.

“Things have gotten so bad across the country that every day people come up to me and ask me, ‘What can I do to help George Bush get out of the White House?’ � McAuliffe quipped as he introduced the headline speakers. “I guess I’ll have to stop telling them to run for president.�

Three more hopefuls, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and the Rev. Al Sharpton, are set to address the gathering today.