When Fighting Bush, Heavyweight Contenders Need to Use a Light Touch

Hopkinton, N.H.

As the weather cooled here one afternoon late last week, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s rhetoric against President Bush heated up.

During his first two stops on a campaign swing through New Hampshire, Dean was forceful in substance but restrained in tone as he critiqued Bush’s domestic and foreign agendas.

At a medical center in Derry, where he began his day, Dean never raised his voice as he lamented the debt that Bush’s tax cuts will impose on future generations. He sounded as temperate as a high school guidance counselor encouraging a disappointing student to do better.

Speaking with reporters after the event, Dean’s message had more edge as he urged the resignation of any official who “misled” the president as part of the now-discredited administration claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa. But even on this, his rhetoric was calm.

Dean’s temperature rose only slightly at a house party later in Concord. As trees swayed in the breeze and wispy clouds drifted overhead, Dean made his case in a suburban backyard to the improbable accompaniment of a rooster crowing nearby. He accused Bush of dividing the country and of falling “out of touch with ordinary Americans.” Still, Dean didn’t approach the level of scorn you’d find in the judges on the average episode of “American Idol.”

When Dean arrived in Hopkinton, however, he turned up the heat when he spoke to nearly 250 supporters milling around a rolling lawn in the thin twilight. “This president promised he would be a uniter, not a divider; that’s a lie,” Dean declared. “We can do better than a president who appeals to the worst of us,” he said.

The sharper the barb at Bush, the louder the cheers from the crowd.

Dean’s shifting emphasis was a reminder that the Democratic presidential candidates are still struggling to find the right tone for challenging a president who is enormously unpopular with the activists who are critical to selecting the party’s nominee, but generally well-respected by the swing voters who can decide a general election.

The question for Dean and his rivals is whether in satisfying the visceral longing among Democrats for denunciation of Bush, they will frighten away centrist voters -- the way conservatives did with their overheated attacks on Bill Clinton throughout his presidency.

The demand from Democratic die-hards for a hard line against Bush seems to have at least three distinct roots. One is tactical. The principal lesson most Democrats took from the 2002 midterm election was that the party lost ground because it failed to challenge Bush aggressively enough, especially on his tax cuts and foreign policy. Dean encapsulates that conviction when he declares, always to loud applause, that “the way to beat this president is not to try to be like him.”

Some of the anger toward Bush also reflects the lingering belief among many Democrats that he won the White House illegitimately in 2000. But far more of the passion has been generated by what Bush has done since he arrived in Washington.

As president, Bush has pursued a more confronta-

tional conservative agenda than many on either side expected. That has energized conservatives. But it has also repelled many Democrats.

The result is that except for the periods immediately around the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, Bush has polarized public opinion as sharply as any president in memory. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken late last month, Bush’s approval rating was 94% among Republicans, but just 29% among Democrats. That’s among the largest gaps ever measured.

In the same poll, only 28% of Democrats said Bush was someone they admired. Just 30% of Democrats said Bush cared about people like them. Among Republicans, both numbers approached 90%.

Like some black hole, that pulsating hostility is exerting a gravitational pull on the Democratic presidential field. Dean at times has used language more superheated than in Hopkinton, describing Bush as obsessed with Iraq, comparing him to President Nixon and accusing him of “catering to bigotry and hatred.”

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has gone even further; at times he sounds like he’s calling Bush out for a fight. Edwards has called the president “a phony ... a complete phony,” and described his economic plan as “the most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism.” Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) has approached similar heights in accusing Bush of manipulating intelligence to stampede the country into war.

The problem for the Democrats is that most independents and swing voters aren’t nearly as angry at Bush. They may disagree with some of his ideas and express dissatisfaction with aspects of his performance. But in last month’s Gallup survey, a majority of independents described Bush as a strong and decisive leader, honest and trustworthy, and someone who cares about the problems of people like them. They are unlikely to recognize the portrait of Bush some of the Democratic contenders are painting.

Like all candidates challenging an incumbent, the Democrats face legitimately conflicting pressures. To convince the country to change course, they must make a forceful case against Bush’s direction. But they might also remember that even most Americans who disagree with a president, any president, usually don’t consider him malevolent or stupid, just wrong or ineffective.

Dozens of leading Republicans forgot that truth during the Clinton era and indulged in public contempt that hurt them more than their target. One who remembered the lesson was Bush. In 2000, he firmly made his case against the record of Clinton and Al Gore on education, entitlement programs and foreign policy.

And yet, faced with a base that loathed Clinton and Gore at least as much as the Democrats today loathe him, Bush demonstrated a light touch on the Clinton administration’s ethical problems, saying only that he would restore honor and integrity to the White House. No one misunderstood his meaning. Yet he never seemed consumed by anger or zealotry.

The Democrats might learn from the man they are trying to unseat that, when dealing with a sitting president, usually less is more.

*

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past columns on The Times’ Web site at www.latimes.com/brownstein.