NEWS ANALYSIS : Bush Rhetoric: Distraction or a Rallying Cry? : Policy: Some Democrats point to possible impact on domestic politics.

The latest round of tough White House rhetoric on the Persian Gulf crisis, coming as it does only a week before Tuesday’s national elections, has raised questions about the possible impact of such rhetoric on domestic politics.

Some Democratic strategists complain that recent hawkish statements by President Bush could be an attempt to distract public attention from budget problems and plunging poll ratings.

Bush has denounced such charges as cynical. To “suggest that a President would play politics with the lives of American kids halfway around the world” is “the ultimate in cynicism and indecency,” he has said.

But Paul Tully, political director for the Democratic National Committee, retorted, “I wouldn’t say it was cynical, but it was calculated.”

The record of Bush’s recent speeches does not show any escalation in the harshness of his statements about the Persian Gulf. In fact, when the President has mentioned the conflict, he repeatedly has praised Democratic leaders for their “bipartisan support” of his policy.

Nevertheless, Bush did declare Wednesday that he has “had it” with Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein, and in a recent meeting with congressional leaders he repeated an earlier assertion comparing the Iraqi leader with Adolf Hitler.

Such statements may serve to divert public attention from his recent performance on domestic issues--a record that has spread alarm among GOP politicians across the country as Tuesday’s election draws near.

To be sure, Bush has been devoting his campaign speeches to attacks on the Democrats over the budget. But since that issue was settled last week, news accounts and public attention have been focused on his remarks about the gulf crisis instead.

And Bush’s hard-line statements, while consistent with earlier rhetoric, could strengthen his image as a forceful leader.

At the same time, it is not clear whether this would help Republican candidates ease fears among worried voters.

And Bush’s praise for Democratic bipartisanship tends to undermine his attempt to denounce congressional Democrats as irresponsible on the budget and taxes.

Further, in the long run, Bush risks looking like a paper tiger at home and abroad if he continually talks tough but never takes decisive action.

Bush’s anti-Iraq rhetoric remains tough. In a campaign speech Wednesday in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, he vowed to “wipe out” the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait.

Democrats immediately dismissed Bush’s tough talk as an attempt to distract public attention from his handling of the recent budget crisis, the sagging economy and other domestic problems, which have sent his ratings plummeting and alarmed GOP candidates.

Tully of the Democratic National Committee argued that by focusing attention on the Middle East crisis and by summoning congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to review gulf policy, the President was trying to “get . . . back on the world stage” and “rekindle his leadership.”

“Foreign policy has a uniquely important relationship to voters’ opinions on political leadership,” Tully added.

The efficacy of such a strategy has been demonstrated frequently in U.S. history--most recently in 1979, when at the onset of the hostage crisis in Iran, the public rallied behind a beleaguered President Jimmy Carter, helping to defeat a challenge by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Although Bush’s tough talk on Iraq stirred political speculation because of the closeness of the election, such oratory is nothing new for Bush and seems to reflect his frustration over the stalemate in the desert as much as any desire to change the subject.

Indeed, in nearly every speech the President has given over the past month, he has talked about the gulf, and the language has nearly always been harsh.

A month ago, Bush met with the emir of Kuwait at the White House and denounced Iraq’s “ruthless and ambitious dictator” who “ransacked and pillaged a once peaceful and secure country, its population assaulted, incarcerated, intimidated and even murdered.”

Ever since, Bush has repeated to his audiences examples of atrocities described to him by the emir--stories that Iraqi troops had pulled Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and torn hospital patients away from dialysis machines.

But whatever the political consequences of focusing attention on Operation Desert Shield, White House strategists clearly are not prepared to depend on such a strategy alone in the campaign’s closing days.

Bush’s now-definitive campaign speech--which he unveiled in California on Friday and is likely to repeat more than a dozen times at GOP campaign events between now and next Tuesday--concentrates almost entirely on the budget, not on foreign policy.

The emphasis reflects the belief of White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and other Bush aides that the President can turn voter anger against the Democrats by painting them as the “tax-and-spend” party.