A Way With Words Is Wrong Way to White House

It’s getting to the point where Senate Democrats may need to hold their weekly caucus meetings in New Hampshire. It may be two years-plus until the New Hampshire primary kicks off the 2004 presidential race, but already half a dozen Democratic senators are circling the starting line.

This may not be a cause for celebration at the Democratic National Committee. Historically, the Senate has been less a launching pad than a graveyard for presidential ambitions. Only two men have ever been elected president directly from the Senate (Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920 and Democrat John F. Kennedy in 1960).

Just about the only way for senators to even win their party’s presidential nomination is to serve a turn as vice president first--the way Richard Nixon, Walter F. Mondale and Al Gore did. For sitting senators, the odds of getting the party’s nod are bleak: Besides Kennedy and Harding, only four others have done so since 1860. The list of senators who have sought the nomination, and failed, just since World War II would fill a legislative all-star team--the prominent also-rans include Republicans Robert A. Taft and Howard H. Baker Jr., and Democrats Edward M. Kennedy, Henry L. Jackson, and Edmund S. Muskie. The longest distance in U.S. politics may be the mile and a half down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Senate to the White House.

None of this appears to have discouraged a new crop of contenders. Even after the announcement last week by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) that he won’t run, Democratic senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and even Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin are all mulling a 2004 challenge to President Bush. Maybe one of them will emerge from the Senate’s marble cocoon as the next John F. Kennedy. But the failure of so many Senate giants to move up suggests that the road ahead is rockier than they think. Among the reasons:

Bias toward the executive: Senators talk. Voters seem to prefer presidents who do. In the 19th century, Americans turned more to generals than to senators for the top job; in the last century, it’s been governors--six governors in all, compared with just the two senators. The last four challengers who won control of the White House from the opposition party have all been governors: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The biggest challenge for governors is convincing voters they understand the national, and especially international, issues that senators can debate in their sleep. But governors gain an advantage from the assumption among voters that, as an executive, they know how to balance a budget and handle a crisis. Senators always face the suspicion that when times get tough they’ll give a really good speech.

Financial base: Because they control home-state patronage, governors can usually raise money much more easily than senators. Among the Democrats, Daschle could probably squeeze big bucks out of his position as Senate majority leader, but all the rest might be hard-pressed to keep up if a big-state governor got into the race or Gore came back for another try.

Hype: In baseball, minor league prospects for the New York teams are routinely overrated because the unblinking spotlight of the Big Apple media inflates their reputations. Likewise, proximity to the political press corps ensures that politicians who operate in Washington generate more early buzz than talented competitors in the states. But that doesn’t mean the candidates from Capitol Hill really have more relevant skills or a head start in introducing themselves to voters.

From “Scoop” Jackson to Phil Gramm, senators who are household names in Washington are often shocked to discover that hardly anyone in Iowa and New Hampshire has been watching their stellar performances on the Sunday talk shows. (To run for president is to be reminded how few people really watch political chatter.) In 1980, the year he first ran for president, Bob Dole was already a force in the Senate; in the New Hampshire primary that year, Dole attracted only 597 votes, which just about qualified him as the XFL of presidential candidates.

Distance: In modern times, it’s been better for presidential candidates to run as a scourge of Washington than a master of it. For all their other ideological differences, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush all incorporated populist anti-Washington appeals that stressed their distance from the nation’s capital. It’s obviously more difficult for a senator who makes his living in Washington to convincingly run against it.

Difficult, but not impossible. Over the last generation, the senators who ran the best presidential races have all been congressional mavericks who positioned themselves as outsider/reformers first, lawmakers second. That’s a line that runs from John McCain in 2000 to Gary Hart in 1984, George S. McGovern in 1972, Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and Barry Goldwater in 1964. It’s possible to imagine Edwards or (less likely) Feingold slipping into that role in 2004, but those clothes won’t fit easily on any of the other Democratic Senate possibilities.

For all these reasons, Democrats could probably do with a few more governors in their 2004 field. The problem is they don’t have many; the only Democratic big-state governor is California’s Gray Davis, and he’s worried more about keeping the lights on in his reelection bid than about warming up voters in New Hampshire. Georgia’s Roy Barnes and Iowa’s Tom Vilsack are making noises, but today both seem longshots. If Democrats make gains in the 2002 gubernatorial elections, that could produce some instantly attractive alternatives, such as Andrew Cuomo in New York. But anyone who wins in 2002 will probably have to pledge not to seek the presidency in 2004.

Which leaves the Senate hopefuls in the early spotlight. All are hoping to use this year’s legislative fights with the Bush administration to raise their profiles. The paradox they face is that it’s tough to project the resolve Americans want in a president while exercising the deal-making skills it takes to pass legislation; it’s no coincidence that Senate malcontents like McCain and Hart have mounted stronger nomination bids than skillful legislators like Jackson and Gramm. It may be that the only way for a senator to run for the White House is to run away from the Senate first.

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Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/brownstein.