Weary Democrats Get on the Offensive : Politics: Party leaders defend Clinton agenda and accuse GOP of being taken over by ‘radical right.’

Weary of defending themselves and their President from attacks by the GOP, Democrats are girding to strike back hard, accusing Republicans of obstructionism in Congress and of coming under the sway of the “radical right.”

The broad outlines of their strategy emerged here during a three-day gathering of party leaders.

“We finally figured out what our message (to voters) is,” said Don Sweitzer, the party’s national political director. “Either go forward with Clinton and deal with the nation’s problems or go back to the Republicans and gridlock.”

Besides plotting a counterattack, the Democrats devoted considerable effort to lifting the spirits of state party leaders, many of whom have become frustrated and discouraged by a steady flow of reports about President Clinton’s personal problems and the party’s gloomy prospects in this fall’s off-year voting.

Nearly every speaker paid tribute to Clinton’s accomplishments, particularly revitalization of the economy, and to his goals, especially enactment of health care reform.

“We have created an agenda that Democrats can run on, can run proudly on and can win on,” said presidential pollster Stanley B. Greenberg.

But the heartiest applause came in response to the hard-edged rhetoric of Democratic National Chairman David Wilhelm, who took aim at the self-described conservative Christians, whom he branded the “radical right.” He accused such groups, which have scored successes in intraparty clashes in Virginia, Texas and Minnesota, of trying to use religion to “coerce” political support for their controversial views.

“The Republican Party has a problem,” Wilhelm said. “Its state parties are rapidly being taken over by the forces of the radical right, the very same people who brought us the 1992 Republican convention in Houston.”

Democrats are as committed to their religious beliefs as conservative Christians are to theirs, Wilhelm said, but “our faith leads us to different conclusions.”

He pointed to Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Quist, who reportedly referred in a speech to a “genetic predisposition” that better enables men to be heads of households. He also challenged remarks by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who once defined the feminist agenda as one that “encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

While conceding that conservative Christians are entitled to their beliefs, Wilhelm said other Americans “have the right, even the obligation, to challenge those views and to do so without being labeled bigots.”

Wilhelm’s criticism of conservative Christians echoed comments last week by Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as Clinton. They appeared to be part of a broad Democratic effort to make Republicans pay a price for the support of conservative Christians.

But Wilhelm also had other arrows in his quiver. Among them was a sample television commercial ridiculing House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia for opposing health care reform.

After depicting a blue-collar worker who was without health care coverage after 16 years on the job, the ad shows a picture of Gingrich. “This man has also worked for 16 years at the same job,” the narrator says. “He has great health care coverage. . . . Tell him if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for you.”

Another tactic proposed for Democratic candidates was to turn Republican optimism about taking control of the Senate in November into an argument against the party’s candidates.

For example, party officials noted that a Republican-controlled Senate would mean that conservative Jesse Helms of North Carolina would chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond would head the Judiciary Committee and New York’s Alfonse M. D’Amato would head the Banking Committee.

“So let’s be clear about the stakes in a race like the one for the U.S. Senate here in California,” Wilhelm told the group, saying that a vote for Rep. Michael Huffington, the Santa Barbara Republican challenging Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein, “in a very real way is a vote for Jesse Helms, a vote for Al D’Amato and a vote for Strom Thurmond.”

The stakes are also high in the House, said Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee and chief deputy whip of the House.

The Democrats control the House with 256 seats (the Republicans have 178 and there is one independent) and while almost no one believes they will lose their numerical majority, Richardson warned that any significant loss could cut into the party’s “operating majority” of about 40 seats. Those seats are held by Democrats who can be counted on to support Clinton on most key votes.

Richardson urged the state party leaders to use their influence with members of Congress to lobby for support of Clinton’s health care proposal, arguing that its enactment could be a decisive factor in the fall elections.

“This will be the defining moment,” he said. “If we don’t produce, the voters will not take it out on the institution of Congress, they will take it out on the majority party.”