ON NOT BEATING A DEAD DONKEY

Democrats debate how to hit Bush (Peter S. Canellos, 8/12/2003, Boston Globe)

"In each of the three polls we've done we've seen a lower rating for the party among Democrats," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, noting that registered Democrats are "very antagonistic to Bush. They really want a candidate to stand up to Bush."

The current thinking, according to strategists and those involved in the campaign, is that Bush remains personally popular among swing voters, even if they disagree with some of his policies. At a time of intense concern about national security, many voters are inclined to defer to the president, and still suspect that Democrats are weak on defense. Thus, they said, the party's candidates must zero in on weaknesses in the economy and the chaos in Bush's postwar Iraq policy, while persuading the electorate that they, too, are vigilant against terrorism.

The result has been many candidates competing for the mantle of Clintonian moderation.

But to many in the party's base, Bush's assertive tone and message call for a similar response. They yearn for a sharper line of attack and echo the Republicans in foreseeing a combative campaign with strict ideological dimensions.

Sure, the President is intensely ideological, but the big question in all of this is: what assertive tone? It's hard to think of a president who mentions the opposing party in negative terms less often than Mr. Bush does. Even when he was running in 2000 he had an almost sublime tendency to ignore Bill Clinton and even Al Gore, when most on the Right wanted him to make the Clinton scandals an issue. The only time we've seen him get down and dirty was against John McCain and that left the poor Senator so dazed and confused he hardly knew what hit him. If the Democrats think that George Bush is being too tough with them now, they're just kidding themselves. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2003 1:56 PM