ANAHEIM : Democrats’ Leader Gives ‘Em a Pep Talk

Trying to light a fire beneath his beleaguered party, Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown warned Monday that members must be more confident of and united in their efforts to win the White House or the party will suffer at all levels of government.

Brown told the audience at a labor convention in Anaheim that Democrats should not believe experts’ assertions that President Bush cannot be defeated in 1992.

“We Democrats need to stop walking around with our heads hung low,” he said. “If we don’t get serious about the presidential contest, we’re going to do great damage to those running for United States Senate, the House of Representatives, governors, county officials and mayors all over this country.”

Brown made his remarks to a national convention of American Federation of Government Employees at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers. The organization is an AFL-CIO affiliate with 700,000 members. The Rev. Jesse Jackson is scheduled to speak at the convention today.

Brown sounded a theme that Democrats plan to carry into next year’s elections: that Bush has ignored growing domestic problems such as crime, education and health care while focusing his energy on foreign affairs.

“We have an economic recovery program for the Soviet Union, we have an economic recovery program for Kuwait . . . we need an economic recovery program here at home,” he told a cheering crowd. Bush has done so much international travel, Brown said, that “sometimes I think he’s running for Secretary General of the United Nations.”

Most of the speech, however, was intended to recharge Democrats’ batteries to prepare for the elections next year. Brown stressed repeatedly that if the Democratic Party will take up the fight, Bush can be beaten.

“The fact is that 15 months is a lifetime in politics,” he said. “We cannot allow ourselves to be cynics or pessimists. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into the trap of believing that we cannot control our own destiny.”

Brown cited Democratic successes in state and congressional contests, particularly in the West, as evidence that the party is still politically potent.

When Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, Brown said, experts predicted a realignment in voters’ preference, for Republicans. But, he said, “today there are more Democrats in the U.S. Senate, in Congress and in governors’ offices than there were in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected and in 1988 when George Bush was elected.”

“We are doing something right, somewhere,” he said. “Now we have to learn how to win the most important office, and that is President of the United States.”