No matter how hard they try, Democrats can't seem to get past their narrow loss of the presidency in 2000. Even when the leading hopefuls for the 2004 nomination gathered this week in New York they couldn't stop rehashing the mistakes made by former Vice President Al Gore, the front-runner who stayed away but whose rhetoric still grates on party centrists.
The frustration of the contenders who showed up at the annual meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was evident.
"I'm not going backwards. I'm going forwards," said Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry when asked after his speech to comment on Gore's 2000 strategy.
But as much as the party wants to focus on the large task of ousting President Bush from the White House, there are Democratic officeholders – many of them centrists or moderates – who don't want to let go of the past just yet.
At issue for them is Gore's "people vs. the powerful" mantra, a theme they believe cost him wins in key border states and left him agonizingly short of the electoral votes needed to win.
"I shuddered all through 2000," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California. "I was constantly talking to Democrats and Independents who were voting for me but were turned off by that rhetoric."
Tauscher recalled the early 1980s when "we were the party of tax and spend liberals. ... We finally got it right with Bill Clinton and we can't go back."
Agreeing with her was Clinton's transportation secretary, Rodney Slater. "The point of this meeting was to get past the populism question," he said. "We were in danger of slipping back to pre-1992 and that has to be checked."
The most surprising attack on Gore's rhetoric came at the beginning of the meeting from Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who was Gore's vice presidential running mate in 2000.
The people vs. the powerful theme, he told reporters, "ultimately made it more difficult for us to gain the support of some of the middle class independent voters who don't see America as us vs. them."
The sniping at Gore was not accidental from DLC adherents who are determined that the party's candidate in 2004 not hew to a liberal line. But it annoyed Gore partisans who thought it ignored the former vice president's victory in the popular vote.
"They're putting forward a theory but they don't have the facts to support that theory," said Jano Cabrera, a Gore spokesman. "His message of the 2000 campaign garnered more votes than any other Democratic presidential candidate in our entire history."
Cabrera said Gore – who was in Manhattan just a few blocks away – stayed away from the DLC meeting because of "a scheduling conflict" and was not snubbing the group he helped found.
But, particularly with many of the other would-be candidates giving workmanlike but not especially stirring speeches, Gore didn't have to be here to overshadow the others.
"His presence dominates every Democratic gathering. That's just a reality," said former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, the current Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Pennslyvania.
"There is a great feeling among ordinary Democratic voters that Al Gore won the election and it was stolen from him. That feeling is particularly strong among African-Amnericans and Latinos," he said.
Another Democrat, who asked not to be named, said Gore's absence was a reflection of the strength he brings to the 2004 race. "He's head and shoulders above this field and it doesn't make sense for him to be at every cattlecall."
He joked that Gore was the "800-pound gorilla" in the race before all the criticism here of his populist rhetoric. "Now, after that, he's the 900-pound gorilla. It just emphasized how much stronger he is than the others."
But the other candidates believe the field is more wide open than that.
"We're in the process now of sorting through where the party intends to be and who will be the spokesperson," said Kerry, who left no doubt that he will not cede the populist label to Gore. "I'm not going to be second to anybody in my desire to fight for the average person," he said.
The first test of the candidates will come in the Iowa caucuses in January 2004 and Attorney General Tom Miller said Gore starts the campaign with enormous advantages.
"But the caucuses are not in anybody's pocket," he cautioned, particularly with House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt strong in the farm belt. "That's why you have these meetings now and why the candidates are already coming to Iowa," he said. "They're trying to get some exposure. Plant the flag. It'll be here before you know it."
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