Kerry-Edwards Ticket Revives Populism Issue

Does John F. Kerry plus John Edwards equal Al Gore?

Since he became the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Kerry has toned down the fire-breathing populism that marked his primary campaign -- a message that echoed Gore’s controversial “people vs. the powerful” theme in the 2000 election. But in Edwards, Kerry chose a running mate who built his own presidential bid around a tough-on-trade populism that denounced the disparities between “the two Americas” and promised to “cut off at the knees” Washington lobbyists and insiders.

Now, analysts in both parties are wondering whether Edwards’ selection signals a Kerry tilt away from his centrist, business-friendly rhetoric of the last few months toward his more polarizing primary rhetoric.

The evidence from the ticket’s debut suggests Kerry may be pursuing a hybrid approach that accepts Edwards’ “two Americas” analysis but focuses more on a promise to lift those on the bottom than excoriating those on the top.

Some Democrats think Kerry previewed this subtle adjustment when he announced his pick of Edwards on Tuesday. The Massachusetts senator spoke less about divisions in society than about “building one America, for all Americans.” He continued spotlighting that message as he and Edwards campaigned together Wednesday.

Kerry’s goal, aides say, is more to project empathy for middle-class aspirations than to stoke populist resentment of the interests Gore targeted.

Asked whether Edwards’ selection showed that Kerry was returning to the sharper-edged populist message of the primaries, Tad Devine, a senior campaign strategist, said: “No. It is a signal that a fight for the middle-class and working families is at the heart of the domestic agenda. That’s what this campaign is about ... not as a matter of populism, but a matter of priorities.”

The populism that shaped Gore’s general election campaign remains controversial within the Democratic Party. Critics contend that his message hurt the party’s appeal to upper-middle-income voters and that it seemed overly pessimistic.

In his recently published memoir, former President Clinton joined the critics. He wrote that while Gore’s argument had merit, it did not allow the then-vice president to fully benefit from “our record of economic and social progress.” Clinton also wrote that the message frightened swing voters who worried that Gore “might change the economic direction of the country.”

During this year’s Democratic primaries, however, almost all the major candidates moved toward Gore-like populism. Kerry lambasted “Benedict Arnold corporations” that shift jobs abroad and blasted what he termed the Bush administration’s “creed of greed.”

Edwards developed the most distinctive and perhaps most effective version of this theme by asserting that the nation had stratified into “two Americas ... one America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward.”

Delivered in the North Carolina senator’s upbeat, energetic cadences, it was populism without the snarl, and it was well received in Democratic primaries.

As a message in the general election, however, Edwards’ approach confronts a political problem: Over the last generation, Democrats have grown increasingly dependent on the votes of socially moderate, upper-income families who reside on the sunny side of Edwards’ “two Americas.” Today, the electorate is more likely to divide along lifestyle lines -- such as frequency of church attendance or marital status -- than income.

“As you go up and down the ladder, you can’t tell whether somebody is a Democrat or a Republican by their income level,” said Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign’s chief strategist, in an assessment seconded by Democrats. “There are as many people who earn over $100,000 who vote for Democrats as there are people who earn $35,000 who vote for Democrats.”

Those trends help explain Kerry’s change in emphasis since the primaries.

Since March, Kerry has not eliminated populist flourishes in his speeches. At a stop last weekend in Wisconsin, he depicted President Bush as a servant of special interests. “I think we’ve got a Washington that has been taken over by these piles of money,” Kerry said. “I think they have a license -- literally a license -- for a creed of greed.”

While campaigning with Edwards in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday, Kerry took a shot at “the big folks, the big money, the big power [that] is able to walk away with the store at the expense of average people.”

But mostly, Kerry has muted such rhetoric. Instead, he has offered more centrist economic proposals that stress fiscal discipline and incentives -- rather than invective -- for business. Gone are the attacks on “Benedict Arnold” corporations. In their place are calls to cut taxes for American corporations in hopes that that would create jobs in the U.S. Kerry also would raise taxes for companies that relocate jobs overseas.

The shift in tone, said Devine, represents a shift in audience from partisan Democrats whom Kerry courted during the primaries to “swing voters in the battleground states” who many analysts expect will decide November’s winner.

The charge that Bush is tied to special interests “has always been part of the Democratic critique,” said one senior Kerry strategist. “Having said that, I don’t think you are going to see anybody adopting the kind of [combative] language that Gore did. [Kerry] is in a different place; the country is in a different place.”

One advantage for Kerry and Edwards as they seek to harmonize their messages is that they don’t disagree on many issues.

Trade is the topic that may create the most complications for the pair. Compared to his voting record in the Senate, Kerry distanced himself somewhat from free trade during the primary campaign. He pledged to reject free-trade agreements with Central and South America unless they contained tougher labor and environmental standards. He also promised to review existing trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Edwards went further, promising to renegotiate NAFTA’s labor and environmental provisions. Some analysts wonder whether Edwards’ selection will pull the ticket back toward a protectionist message that clashes with Kerry’s focus on increasing cooperation with other nations.

“The problem for John Edwards is going to be to square his trade position with the internationalist position of the campaign,” said one analyst who has closely followed Democratic foreign-policy debates.

Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this report.