'Balance' Will Become Democrats' New Mantra

By Charlie Cook
© National Journal Group Inc.

January 4, 2003

This column was originally featured on National Journal on January 4, 2003.

Here is a New Year's prediction: Heading toward the 2004 election, the word that Democrats will use most in attacking President Bush, his administration, and his re-election campaign will be "balance." That word will be used to suggest that Bush is not a bad person and that his ideas aren't all wrong, but his priorities aren't right and he doesn't have the interests of all of the people in mind.

It is virtually impossible for Democrats to claim that Bush wasn't the right person in the job on, and immediately after, 9/11. That argument simply does not ring true beyond the hard core of the Democratic Party's base.

What's more, public opinion and election results argue that a move back to the old agenda of the Democratic Party would make no sense politically-that the approaches represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society are no longer relevant, attractive, or even remotely acceptable to most voters today.

So where do Democrats go? An ABC News/Washington Post survey of 1,209 adults conducted on December 12-15 suggests possible openings for the Democratic Party.

Americans gave Bush very high scores for such personal attributes as being "a strong leader" (75 percent), having a "vision for the future" (74 percent), and being "honest and trustworthy" (70 percent). The president didn't score quite as well on understanding "complex issues" (63 percent) and making the country "safer and more secure" (65 percent). And his numbers were even less impressive on understanding "the problems of people like you" (51 percent) and bringing "needed change to Washington" (53 percent).

Asked whether certain groups have "too much, too little, or the right amount" of influence on the Bush administration, 60 percent of those Americans polled said large corporations have too much influence, and 56 percent said that the oil and gas industries have too much. Interestingly, only 28 percent said that conservative religious groups have too much influence, suggesting that an attack on the administration for its ties to such groups would ring hollow with most voters.

Most telling for Democrats, though, was that 61 percent of respondents said that people like themselves have too little influence. The surveyors asked whether Bush is mainly concentrating on "things that are important to you personally" or "things that are not important to you personally"; among responsdents, the former led by only 7 points, 52 percent to 45 percent. And 62 percent said that "having the government provide needed services was more important" to them than cutting taxes; 34 percent disagreed. Fifty-seven percent said that cutting taxes was more important to Bush than providing services.

Fifty-six percent said that balancing the budget was more important to them than cutting taxes; 53 percent said that cutting taxes was more important to Bush than balancing the budget.

During the 2002 campaign, even though consumer confidence was at a nine-year low, Democrats seemed paralyzed with fear about taking the president on over the economy. Perhaps they were just reluctant to attack him on anything, or maybe they were afraid of opening the tax-cut issue.

Although it would be political suicide for the Democratic Party to come out categorically against any and all tax cuts, these and other poll results suggest that what Democrats need to say is that they are not against tax cuts, just the type of tax cuts that Bush has proposed-that the needs of working and middle-class families have to be balanced with the needs of businesses to prosper and expand and hire more workers at good wages. The right tax cuts are fine, in other words, but tax cuts must be balanced with the need to balance the budget and reduce the national debt.

As Democrats attempt to regroup from their November 5 losses, they are trying to decide how to reposition their party. Should they move to the left, as some have suggested, to show that they "stand for something" and provide "a real choice," not just a "Republican-lite" alternative? Or should they move toward the middle? Or should they take the slightly different "New Democrat" approach advocated by the Democratic Leadership Council?

The ultimate answer, of course, is that the party's 2004 standard-bearer will really determine the Democrats' path. And the contenders vying for that role must now decide the direction for their campaigns to take and the issues to emphasize.

The latest pair of Ipsos-Reid/Cook Political Report polls, surveying 2,011 adults on December 3-5 and December 17-19, show that 50 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, while just 42 percent think it's headed in the right direction.

The president's overall job-approval rating among the 1,553 registered voters in the sample is 62 percent, but on handling the economy, his approval rating is down to 51 percent. On handling "domestic issues such as health care, education, the environment, and energy," the president's approval rating was 50 percent. Those are not good numbers, but they are counterbalanced by Bush's 65 percent approval rating on foreign policy and the war on terrorism.

Forty-three percent of adults polled by Ipsos-Reid said they definitely intend to vote to re-elect Bush. That's a far cry from the 54 percent and 50 percent who said so in the first and second quarters of 2002.

Overall, these are not the numbers of an untouchable president. Perhaps more worrisome for the White House is that the Ipsos-Reid polling showed greater pessimism among Americans about the economy in December than at any previous point in 2002.

So how should Democrats position themselves? Arguably they should head toward the place that worked so well for them in 1992 and from 1995 to 2000, when they were gaining seats in the House and Senate and when they won the popular vote in three consecutive presidential elections.

During those two periods, Bill Clinton found the true "sweet spot" for his Democratic Party-a carefully balanced nexus between policy and politics, vision and realism. True, Clinton was one of the most brilliant and gifted politicians of our lifetime, but he also had as many personal flaws as any other modern president. And, like Richard Nixon, Clinton let his failings prevent him from joining the list of great presidents. But except during 1993 and '94, Clinton's many problems stemmed from his personal life, not his approach to issues.

To the extent that Americans opted for change in 2000, their action wasn't based on ideology or on policy differences with the Clinton administration. Instead, the electorate had grown weary of scandals and simply opted for the presidential candidate who seemed most likely to provide relief.

In late August and most of September of 2000, Vice President Gore seemed to represent sufficient change in character and behavior from Clinton, and he consistently led Bush in the polls. But when Gore's exaggerations and smirks undercut that contrast, voters' desire for change boosted Bush.

The rich irony, of course, is that Bush went into the final week of the 2000 election with a narrow but seemingly sturdy lead, only to lose it in the final weekend because of news of a two-decade-old arrest for driving under the influence. That revelation raised enough questions about Bush's forthrightness to cost him a popular-vote victory.

The bottom line: In searching for a future, Democrats need look no further than their fairly recent past.

Clinton handed them a recipe of moderation on economic issues with an emphasis on deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility, mixed with a moderately liberal approach to social and cultural issues.

If the economy is good and Bush makes relatively few mistakes between now and Election Day 2004, Democrats will probably not regain the White House. But if Bush turns out to be vulnerable, Democrats looking for an effective campaign strategy should reopen the Clinton playbook.