Democratic ’92 Class Stresses Outsider Role to Rouse Party

In a preview of themes that could dominate the Democratic Party’s presidential race, seven declared or likely candidates appearing Saturday before a group of party insiders presented themselves as outsiders committed to shaking up the party, the political system and the nation.

The marathon series of speeches before the Democratic National Committee in Los Angeles marked the first major encounter in a race that so far has been defined primarily by what it lacks: a clear front-runner, a nationally known cast of contenders and a sharply defined debate just five months before the first primary in Iowa.

But Saturday’s session demonstrated that the Democratic class of 1992, while largely unfamiliar even to this audience of die-hard partisans, is beginning to find a voice--and it is one with a jagged edge.

From Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, with his biting populist gibes at “George Herbert Walker Bush,” to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s more cerebral critiques, each of the seven Democrats accused the President of failing to make headway against domestic problems.

“Where there is no national vision, no national leadership, a thousand points of light leaves a lot of darkness,” Clinton said.

More strikingly, several of the candidates also aimed their fire at the Democratic Party, positioning themselves to run races targeted less at President Bush alone than at what former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. called “Washington’s entrenched political elite, both parties--Democrats and Republicans.”

“We’re all going to be out-outsiding each other,” former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, the first declared candidate, told reporters. “There is a strong sense of gridlock . . . so it is going to have to be a sense of someone who can break free of Washington gridlock and start out in a new direction.”

These volleys of friendly fire demonstrated the importance most of the candidates place on distancing themselves from the approaches that Democrats have employed while losing five of the last six presidential elections--and the opening this leaves for Harkin, currently the only contender unequivocally defending the liberal faith on which many Democrats were reared.

Harkin reaffirmed that creed in his speech, the first in more than three hours of oration that the enthusiastic--but inevitably wilting--crowd of Democratic activists endured at the Biltmore Hotel.

Reaching deep into the Democratic past for inspiration, Harkin quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Hubert H. Humphrey to rebuke his revisionist competitors for losing faith.

“I don’t intend to apologize to anyone for being a Democrat,” Harkin said defiantly. “We haven’t been wrong, we’ve been right and we should be proud to say so.”

But once Harkin left the stage, the remaining competitors, in tones ranging from gentle to vengeful, united in their call for the party to admit mistakes--although they occasionally sniped at each other for their proposed solutions.

After declaring his loyalty to longstanding Democratic positions on civil and women’s rights and the environment, Tsongas won surprisingly strong applause for a speech that asked the Democrats, just urged onto a populist crusade by Harkin, to instead adopt a “pro-business” attitude.

“You cannot redistribute wealth you never created,” Tsongas said, restating the argument he has stressed since declaring his candidacy in April. “We have to understand the American people do not trust us with the economy. The reason we don’t win (the presidency) is because of that reality.”

In an impassioned address that largely left his audience in stunned silence, Brown slammed the Democratic Congress for raising its own pay--and accused his party of complicity in a campaign finance system that “has turned the government into a stop and shop for every greedy, special interest in the country.”

Racing to the far rail even in this group of self-proclaimed outsiders, Brown said the dependence of both parties on wealthy donors has virtually erased the differences between them. “In reality, there’s only one party, the incumbent party, with these two major organizations--different names, but they . . . serve and enhance the same privileged interests,” Brown charged, his voice rising. “There are no substantive differences, there are no choices to be made.”

Offering perhaps the most detailed list of specific policy proposals, Clinton accused Bush of attempting to divide the nation by race, but said the Democrats would have to embrace new approaches to overcome that strategy in 1992. “(If) we do the same thing in 1992 . . . we will get the same result,” he said.

As he has in appearances around the country, Clinton called on the party to meet its traditional goals with new methods, including allowing young people to pay for college aid through national service and demanding greater personal responsibility from all Americans, from recipients of government aid to Wall Street executives.

“George Bush is more than willing to tell Israel how to behave,” Clinton said to loud applause. “Why won’t he tell Wall Street how to behave?”

Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma, who is exploring whether to enter the race, offered a critique similar in substance but with an accusatory edge that Clinton has increasingly blunted as he moves closer to a formal announcement.

Judging by the buzz that greeted his remarks, it was not clear whether McCurdy, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, fulfilled his declared intention “to make some people angry.” But he did his best, charging that Democrats must accept the blame “for a government that spends so much time on the few that it has forgotten the many . . . (and) for the perception that our only answer to problems is dragging out shop-worn solutions of the past.”

After his speech, McCurdy told reporters his final decision on joining the race will come in “a matter of weeks” and will not depend on whether Clinton runs. As the recently resigned chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Clinton might be the first choice of many of the party centrists that McCurdy, the organization’s vice chairman, would need to build his campaign.

In self-deprecating remarks to an audience that thinned markedly when he took the microphone, dark horse Larry Agran, the former mayor of Irvine, Calif., called on the Democratic Party “to become a crucible of national innovation” and urged a 50% cut in the military budget.

In a powerful closing address, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose recent signs of interest in joining the race kept the gossip mill buzzing at the meeting, called for unity, but also accused the Democrats of losing their way.

“Our party must be distinct in our assumptions,” Jackson said. “Both (parties) agreed to the tax shift of $600 billion on working-class America. Both agreed to deregulation, opening up the vaults to let the savings and loan thieves steal and then firing the guards because they were unionized. We must have a different assumption to rebuild America.”

Continuing to fan speculation about his intentions, Jackson told reporters after his remarks that he is “now in the stage of serious consideration” about the race.

Among the contenders, only Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who declared his candidacy earlier this month, and Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who is scheduled to join the race a week from Monday, missed the session. But both are likely to also stress outsider themes, with Wilder contrasting his budget-cutting in Virginia with the huge federal budget deficit, and Kerrey highlighting his experience as a businessman and a Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam to distinguish himself from career politicians.

After listening to the candidates Saturday, California Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides said that the party might be better off with this class of newcomers than the familiar faces, such as Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who have so far stayed on the sidelines.

“They weren’t properly positioned; they were part of the Establishment,” Angelides said. “Now we have candidates who are really generationally new, younger candidates who are not identified and are not, in fact, part of the Establishment. It’s the best thing that could have happened to us.”

But New York Democratic Party Chairman John Marino worried that voters may tire of the finger-pointing at Washington, if it is not backed up with specific proposals that represent new thinking.

“Everyone wants to use the outsider message this year,” Marino said, “but . . . I don’t want to hear, ‘I’m the outsider.’ I want to hear--and a lot of Democrats want to hear--what is your domestic agenda, what is your plan to put people back to work.”