HEADS, WE WIN--TAILS, YOU LOSE

Democrats Draw Battle Lines (ADAM NAGOURNEY, 5/05/03, NY Times)

The first Democratic presidential debate of the campaign, for all its racket and disarray, served to divide the field into two distinct camps. Each embraced a strikingly different appeal to a party that campaign aides describe as hungry to remove President Bush from office, yet deeply worried about its chances for victory next year.

On one side are the candidates whose fundamental argument is more pragmatic than ideological. These candidates presented themselves here on Saturday night as the strongest challengers the party could put up against Mr. Bush. They evoked resumes crammed with governmental experience and stressed positions that are decidedly more moderate than those of many Democratic primary voters.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut was a prime example of this I-can-win camp. "No Democrat will be elected president in 2004 who is not strong on defense," Mr. Lieberman said, arguing that his hawkish views on the military and his extensive experience in military affairs in the Senate positioned him as a plausible challenger.

On the other side are the candidates who are trying to tap into what Democratic campaign aides describe as deep anger flowing from a presidential election in 2000 whose legitimacy many Democrats dispute, and stoked by the conservative policies Mr. Bush has embraced.

As a leading example of that group, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri called for eliminating Mr. Bush's entire tax cut to finance a multibillion-dollar national health care program through subsidies to business. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina appealed to the same audience by eviscerating Mr. Gephardt's proposal, calling it a giveaway to corporations.

Mr. Edwards wrapped his appeal in the language of class difference familiar to the party, promising to "fight for working people" against the "greed and corporate culture that exists."

Both the pragmatic and ideological appeals carry significant risks for the candidates.

Mr. Lieberman is closest here but understates the case. The last two Democrats to win the presidency ran to the Right of their opponents--Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, regardless of what they really are, ran as conservative Southern Christians. What George W. Bush has wisely done, having learned from his Father's failure to do so, is foreclose the room on his Right. Where his Dad had to defend tax hikes and propping up the Communist government in Beijing, the current president has left his opponents no other option but to run against tax cuts and and the war on terror. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2003 10:49 AM