Still reeling, Democrats struggle over '04 strategy
boston.com
By Anne E. Kornblut,
Boston Globe Staff
6/29/2003
PHOENIX -- After the Democrats suffered a wave of defeats in the 2002 midterm elections, party officials rebounded with a promise to sharpen their strategy and emerge reinvigorated well ahead of the 2004 campaign.
More than six months later, however, as Republicans sweep up tens of millions in donations nationwide, many Democratic officials and party faithful say they are still struggling to regain their footing, and are daunted by the next task: Trying to unseat President Bush and win back control of at least one house of Congress.
''There's no question that there is deep doom and gloom, among both congressional Democrats that I've talked to and national Democrats,'' said Phil Clapp, director of the National Environmental Trust, which works closely with Democrats. ''They have to get over it, or they won't have a chance in 2004.''
Last week, the House and Senate passed a sweeping Medicare drug coverage bill, which Bush is likely to sign -- stealing thunder from the Democrats on one of their core issues. This weekend, as Democratic candidates gathered in Phoenix to address Hispanic officials at an annual conference, some Democrats admitted they are facing a real fight for the Latino vote, a growing electorate that has voted heavily Democratic in the past but is now a major target of the White House.
''The problem with the Democratic Party is it has taken the Hispanic vote for granted,'' Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, the highest-ranking elected Hispanic official in the country, said yesterday. He also said that, more broadly, ''the Democratic Party has had a problem articulating an economic message to all voters,'' and that the party must work to explain to voters why its policies are better for Hispanics and the rest of the electorate.
Latinos are the fastest-growing group of voters in the country. Since winning 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000 -- the highest percentage of any Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984 -- Bush has been courting Latinos aggressively, and White House strategists hope to win more than 40 percent in 2004. ''The issue is an erosion,'' Richardson said. If the Democrats were to dip down to winning 59 percent of the Hispanic vote ''in a presidential election, it could be a deciding factor.''
Senior White House political strategist Karl Rove is aware of that dynamic, and it is part of his far-reaching strategy to build a lasting Republican coalition in the 2004 election. Bush administration officials expect a close election, but they hope to make gains in Democratic territory that last into future decades, by making inroads in the Latino community, among Catholics, and with labor unions and Jewish voters.
Bush is on course to have $200 million in his reelection coffer by the end of this year; in a single swing through California on Friday, he was expected to raise $5 million, about as much as each of the top Democratic candidates was able to raise in the three-month period between April and June. Despite predictions that Bush would suffer because of a faltering economy, his approval ratings are holding steady, and his emphasis on the war in Iraq and terrorism have drowned out most Democratic attempts to return the focus to the domestic agenda.
Privately, Democratic strategists say they swing between moments of despair -- especially as they watch their nine presidential candidates battle to define the party's ideology -- and cautious hope. ''We are near rock bottom,'' one strategist in Washington said. ''The good news is, there's nowhere to go but up.''
There are reasons to believe that Democratic morale is excessively low -- including recent polls that show that despite Bush's approval ratings, no more than half the country, and perhaps as little as 45 percent of the country, would vote to reelect him in 2004. The economy has not rebounded, and George H. W. Bush had similar ratings to his son's at this point in his presidency before losing to Bill Clinton.
At the same time, Democrats are seeking to recover lost ground, considering the formation of a cable television network that would counter the powerful core of conservative talk-show hosts, and creating ambitious new think tanks, including one being formed in Washington by former White House chief of staff John Podesta, who expects to operate a $10 million annual budget.
The 2002 midterm elections prompted a split within the party, as some argued that Democrats had grown too similar to Republicans, too afraid to stake out their own positions, and had abandoned their liberal roots. Moderate Democrats, by contrast, argued that they had brought the party back to life in the 1990s after years of liberal stagnation under Reagan and the elder President Bush, and that in order to win important swing states Democrats should embrace the centrist shift.
The ideological debate has grown more intense with the surge of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a relative unknown who appears to have captured some support from disaffected Democrats with his populist, blunt style.
''I share some of the frustration -- not because of where Bush is, or all the money he's raising, but because I want a little more of Harry Truman in the party,'' said former Illinois senator Paul Simon. ''I want us to stand up and be willing to take unpopular stands.''
He continued: ''For that reason, Howard Dean, who comes out of nowhere, almost -- with all due respect to Vermont -- he has picked up a lot of steam because there is a feeling that here is a guy who really is fighting for things.''
Several Democratic operatives, however, said that Dean is spoiling the party's chances of picking a nominee who is capable of beating Bush. ''There's clear frustration, but I also think there's a determination'' within the party to find a nominee who can win, said Rich Masters, a consultant who until recently served as communications director for Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. The problem with the current style among Democrats, Masters said, is that ''the more we scream and yell, the louder, the hotter the rhetoric gets about George W. Bush, that doesn't help us. We need to articulate a message, and we haven't done that yet.''
Speaking to participants at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials yesterday, two Democratic candidates said that ''electability'' is as important as ideology. ''We've got to win,'' Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said. Gesturing to the five other candidates who participated in the forum, Gephardt said, ''We've got to take this country back.''
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said in his closing remarks, ''Most of all, we need a nominee who can win.'' And in a jab at Dean and others who have accused centrists of mimicking Bush -- a jab that indicated the ongoing struggle for the ideological soul of the party -- Kerry said, ''The one thing we don't need or need to be is a second Republican Party.''
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 6/29/2003.
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