Victors May End Up Their Own Spoilers

Are the Democrats ready for prime time?

With their sudden takeover of the Senate, Democrats have acquired a critical weapon they have lacked through George W. Bush’s presidency: a platform from which to advance a competing agenda. But now the question for many party leaders is whether the Democrats are prepared to fill that spotlight.

“There are both opportunities and risk,” said Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. “The opportunity is to articulate a compelling alternative agenda. The risk is that we go out of the mainstream and in so doing become an attractive foil for the president.”

The new Senate majority will allow Democrats to change the terms of Washington’s policy debate in two distinct ways.

They will be able to apply more scrutiny to Bush’s proposals and either slow their progress or derail them. Bush’s energy plan, for instance, will face much more critical hearings than it would have if Republicans still held the committee chairmanships. And some of Bush’s judicial nominations may now be rejected.

Perhaps more important, control of the Senate calendar will enable Democrats to force attention and debate on their own priorities--ideas such as the patients’ bill of rights or prescription drugs for seniors that Bush may not want to see in the headlines.

“George Bush and the Republicans have had the unchallenged ability to write the political script,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “They can’t write that script alone anymore.”

This shift creates intriguing challenges for both sides. The Bush White House has shown great skill at presenting its ideas on a carefully arranged schedule; the Democratic ascension in the Senate will test the administration’s ability to quickly react to a competing agenda crafted with an eye on the elections in 2002 and 2004.

As Bayh suggests, the challenge for Democrats may be to restrain the pent-up demand among party activists chafing to advance liberal causes after six-plus years of Republican control in both congressional chambers. To centrist Democrats, the early signs aren’t encouraging. So far in Bush’s presidency, Democratic alternatives have focused heavily on new spending programs--many of them ideas Bush effectively criticized in the 2000 campaign as a return to big-government liberalism.

Some White House aides say the silver lining for Bush in the Senate changeover may be the signs that Democrats will use their new prominence to refight a debate the president believes he knows how to win.

“That is not to say that none of their specific issues have an appeal in the country,” said one senior White House official who asked not to be identified while discussing administration strategy. “But if they really attempt to repeat that agenda, they are going to face some of the same problems [Democratic presidential candidate Al] Gore did.”

Since the campaign, Democrats have made only limited progress at developing an agenda that advances beyond Gore’s campaign platform. With unusual unity, the party in recent years has emphasized providing prescription drug benefits for seniors, expanding the rights of patients in health maintenance organizations, raising the minimum wage and providing states money to build schools and hire teachers to reduce class sizes.

Except for the education funding, which has been defeated in the Senate, these ideas are likely to be stressed by the Democrats in the months ahead. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said the new majority will likely move ahead on a prescription drug plan he has co-sponsored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and incoming Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Daschle promised quick action on the patients’ bill of rights that Kennedy has co-sponsored with Sens. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Kennedy, through his likely chairmanship of the Health, Education and Labor Committee, plans to push for swift action on raising the minimum wage.

Also likely to receive a boost from a reconfigured Senate is a measure sponsored by McCain and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) to require background checks on sales at gun shows. Democrats will be able to promote their competing energy plan, which focuses more than Bush’s on conservation and promoting renewable resources.

It’s far from certain that Democrats can attract a 51-vote Senate majority for these ideas, much less the 60 they would need to break a GOP filibuster. And all but the patients’ bill of rights would face an uphill climb in the Republican-controlled House.

But at the least, Bush will be compelled to develop responses to Democratic ideas. That’s a challenge he has never really faced before.

In Texas, he worked with Democratic officials such as Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and House Speaker James E. “Pete” Laney, who shared a broadly conservative outlook and did not use the legislative debate as a way to shape public opinion. In Daschle, Bush will face a centrist but highly partisan Democrat hoping to frame the legislative choices in ways that turn public opinion against the administration.

“So for this administration, it is going to be an experience they have not ever had . . . contending with a partisan, skilled Democrat operating with an eye toward elections in both ’02 and ‘04,” said John Weaver, chief political strategist for McCain.

On issue after issue, the Democratic goal will be to portray Bush as more conservative than he wants to be seen by highlighting potentially popular government initiatives the White House is likely to oppose.

While that effort would pose obvious risks for Bush, it also could divide and ultimately wound the Democrats.

Liberals remain generally comfortable with the agenda the party has relied on for the last several years, centered on new spending for prescription drugs and education. “There’s no question we can win these arguments,” Mellman said. “The public overwhelmingly favors our position on each of these issues.”

Centrist Democrats, and even the White House, agree that the Democratic position on many of these issues carries majority support. But the centrists fear that the 1998 and 2000 elections demonstrated the limits to this agenda’s appeal--and underscored the risk that Republicans, rather than fighting each issue individually, will bundle them into a damaging portrayal of Democrats as retrograde big spenders.

“There’s been a disconcerting tendency for Democrats in both houses to default to very familiar positions under Bush,” said Will Marshall, executive director of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. “The generic Democratic agenda . . . didn’t get us back the Congress in 1998 or 2000.”

Privately, Daschle has expressed some of the same fears as Marshall. Earlier this year, Daschle demonstrated his desire for new approaches when he unveiled with House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) one of the few new proposals in the post-Clinton era: a sweeping plan to strengthen the high-technology industry, which could become one cornerstone of a Democratic alternative to Bush’s economic approach.

Some close to Daschle said he is likely to push for other new ideas that move the party beyond the Clinton-Gore agenda. “It is natural when you are the opposition party to stick with ideas that already have a big brand name, like the Clinton-Gore proposals,” said Washington lawyer Ron Klain, who served as chief of staff to both Daschle and Gore. “Now Sen. Daschle and his colleagues will have a chance to put forward their own ideas in a way that will get a lot more attention . . . and I think they will evolve in new directions.”