Democrats Map a Strategy for ’92 Comeback : Politics: Health care, energy and trade will be key issues. Party hopes to overcome apparent drop in popularity stemming from Persian Gulf War.

Faced with a flood of survey data registering the dramatic post-Desert Storm decline in their party’s fortunes, Democratic National Committee members sought Saturday to cheer each other up and to chart a comeback agenda for the 1992 election.

Energized by a six-piece jazz combo that provided a lively prelude to Saturday’s session and later by some rousing rhetoric from party leaders, the Democrats drafted a series of policy proposals that form an early foundation for their bid to regain the White House.

In the first major party gathering since America’s triumph over Iraq set President Bush’s popularity soaring, the Democrats sought inspiration from the Persian Gulf conflict for the daunting challenge they face in next year’s presidential contest.

“We have shown the world what Americans are made of,” National Chairman Ron Brown told the committee members at the closing session of the DNC’s two-day semiannual meeting. “Now we’re ready to use that same energy here at home.”

Recalling the military’s ability to shoot down incoming Iraqi Scud missiles, Brown said: “We cannot now ignore the millions of Scud missiles aimed here at home--the Scud missiles of crime and illiteracy, inadequate education, housing and health care, hopelessness and homelessness.”

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington urged committee members to look past the party’s current difficulties and view the 1992 campaign as a historic opportunity. “The next election will give us a chance that we haven’t had for a long time to show the dramatic differences between the vision of America at the end of this century as represented by the Democratic Party and that represented by the Republican Party,” Foley said.

Among the major components of that vision, as it emerged in rough outline from the oratory and policy resolutions, are three key issues: health care, energy and trade.

In the words of West Virginia Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, “affordable and available health care” is vital to party efforts to bolster the loyalty of core constituencies among the economically disadvantaged, while regaining middle-class voters who have strayed to GOP ranks.

Deriding Bush for not dealing with the problem, Rockefeller declared: “Rising costs and shrinking coverage are crushing families, working people and small businesses everywhere you look.”

One measure adopted by the Democrats would guarantee all Americans the right to health care. It called for establishing a national social insurance program to provide core coverage, backed by required contributions from all employers, along with a cost-containment program that would include a cap on health expenditures.

The energy issue is viewed by Democrats as a way to fault the Bush Administration for fostering U.S. dependence on foreign oil, making the country vulnerable to aggressors such as Saddam Hussein, while also making their case for reviving the economy at home.

An energy resolution adopted by the committee calls for reduction of oil import levels to 35% of total U.S. production, down from 45% during the first six months of last year. It proposes cutting U.S. gasoline consumption by 30% per vehicle mile, reducing home and factory electrical energy consumption by 25%, and restoring federal low-income energy and weatherization programs.

The trade issue also has twofold significance for Democrats. First, it is part of the economic nationalism doctrine espoused by House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and other party leaders who argue for tougher U.S. trade policies, including retaliation against unfair practices by other nations, to strengthen the U.S. role in the world. “I want America to be No. 1 in the year 2000,” Gephardt told the DNC executive committee on Friday.

In addition, the issue has appeal to many traditional Democratic voters, particularly blue-collar workers and union members, who are concerned about the loss of U.S. jobs to lower-paid workers in other nations.

The committee adopted a resolution warning that a pending Bush Administration proposal to adopt a free trade agreement with Mexico would be “a disaster” unless it contained restrictions to protect U.S. workers.

The resolution also opposed the Administration’s request for an extension of “fast track” authority that would compel Congress to vote for or against such a trade agreement without the opportunity to amend it.

Yet even as they took the first tentative steps toward assembling a 1992 platform, the Democrats remained without a single declared candidate for their presidential nomination.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas has said he expects to announce his candidacy early next month. But better-known prospects, including Gephardt, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, have given no indication as to when they would make a decision.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a veteran of the 1984 and 1988 campaigns, told reporters here that he would wait until fall before revealing whether he will run again.