Democrats diverge on way to win

While some in the party want to attract the center, others call for a return to the liberal base.

In western South Carolina, Elaine Gentry counts herself among the legions of Democrats furious with President Bush and pumped up by Howard Dean's campaign for president.

But she's a little nervous about the former Vermont governor.

"Dean says a lot of the things that many of us want to say," said the retired teacher who frets Dean could antagonize swing voters. "He's expressing our anger. But I just don't know if he can win."

In West Palm Beach, Mayor Lois Frankel has little patience for fellow Democrats who argue their party's future depends on reaching for the center, rather than for its liberal base.

"What more could you ask for than a candidate that brings out the base," she said. "Let me tell you, in Florida I'd like to have a candidate who could energize the base because that's how we win."

It's a debate simmering among Democrats across the country as they look at 10 candidates trying to unseat an incumbent Republican president expected to raise a record amount of campaign money but plagued by criticism over the war in Iraq and the economy.

What's the key? Firing up angry Democrats or winning over the moderate middle, the independent and swing voters?

"It's the most important question of this political season," said Washington pollster Rob Schroth, who usually works for Democrats.

Among the Democrats running for president, nobody stirs more passion and excitement from party activists than Dean. The once-obscure Vermonter's blunt talk and early opposition to the war in Iraq have turned him into a fundraising and grass roots phenomenon. Most of the other Democrats sharpened their anti-Bush rhetoric to tap the angry Democrats excited by Dean.

Dean is expected to pull in more than $10-million in the quarter ending Sept. 30, and his success is triggering an internal struggle over the soul of the Democratic Party. Some worry the party is headed toward a repeat of the humiliations of Walter Mondale and George McGovern, Democratic candidates tagged with the liberal label.

"The great myth of the campaign is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of party activists and single-issue groups represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. They don't," leaders of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council wrote in the Los Angeles Times this summer.

"The fact is, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,' as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean likes to call it, is an aberration, a modern-day version of the old McGovern wing of the party, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home."

Many party leaders see Bill Clinton, a former DLC chairman and the only Democrat since FDR to win two terms, as a symbol of the importance of reaching for the center. Others look at the nationwide trouncing Democrats took in 2002 and see a lesson in the hazards of being too timid to aggressively challenge the Republican agenda.

"We can't win being Bush lite," said Florida Democratic Party chairman Scott Maddox, borrowing a line from Dean.

The Democrats' debate played out in Florida in 2002, as much of the party establishment balked at the gubernatorial candidacy of former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, arguing she was too controversial for swing voters. They said that Democrats furious over the 2000 election were sure to vote against incumbent Gov. Jeb Bush and that corporate lawyer and former Marine Bill McBride could appeal to moderates.

McBride won the Democratic nomination but lost the general election by nearly 14 percentage points, and Democratic voter turnout was weak.

Democratic activist Lisa Fink of St. Petersburg bought the centrist argument and heartily backed McBride. This year, she is avidly organizing for Dean and dismissing the party skeptics.

"This time I'm going with my heart," she said. "Looking back at that governor's race, I think things might have been different if Janet Reno had been the nominee. You can have all the electability in the world, but you have to have passion to get the base out."

Which constituency groups are most influential in the Democratic Party also is under discussion.

Neither Dean nor any other Democrat shows evidence of exciting minority voters yet. But the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire are dominated by white party activists, particularly union members.

Dean supporters see a candidate who can bring in people who have given up on politics, while moderates want to pull more middle-class, suburban voters into the party. Pandering to liberal interest groups, from unions to the National Organization For Women, pulls the party away from moderate voters crucial to general election victory, the centrists argue.

But some strategists say that the country is more politically polarized than it used to be and that the pool of swing voters is less important. Independent voters who cross party lines now represent just about 7 percent of the electorate by one Republican estimate. That would suggest the key for both parties is to mobilize their core supporters.

Al From, founder of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, disagrees with that assessment.

"That's just wrong," he said. "In any election you've got to energize the base, but even if the swing vote is smaller - and I'm not convinced it is - there are going to be some other voters you have to have because neither party has a majority. There are soccer moms and office park dads who could go either way and you can't ignore them."

The DLC has criticized Dean, but he does not fit easily under the liberal label. He's a long-time deficit hawk with perfect ratings from the National Rifle Association, and his Democratic opponents are attacking him from all sides. They criticize him for supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement and proposed Medicare cuts in the mid 1990s.

But it was Dean's early antiwar position that helped him catch fire among activists and raise concern among moderates. Despite ongoing problems in Iraq, they still worry how his antiwar rhetoric would play in the general election.

"You had 100 percent of the Republicans that were for the war and two-thirds of the Democrats for the war. Basically, 20 percent of the population is against the war. That's certainly not a general election strategy," said Mitchell Berger, a prominent Fort Lauderdale fundraiser helping Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Last week another critic of the war, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, entered the primary contest with strong national security credentials.

Former Miami-Dade Democratic Party chairman Joe Geller, a Dean supporter, gives Clark little shot at the nomination, but sees his candidacy as great news for Dean and the party as a whole.

"When Gen. Clark says we made a big mistake in Iraq, you can't dismiss him. He brings so much credibility to the issue," Geller said.

With continuing problems in Iraq and with the economy pushing down President Bush's poll numbers, even some conservative Democrats are worrying less about the moderate appeal of some of the top contenders.

In South Carolina, state Rep. Fletcher Smith of Greenville backs Lieberman because he thinks Lieberman's moderate views and emphasis on national security have wide appeal. But while Lieberman has attacked Dean as a liberal who could lead the Democrats back into the wilderness, Smith is less pessimistic about the doctor from Vermont.

"When people are losing their jobs and gas prices are heading up to $2 a gallon, I think a lot of people around here may be ready to put even a liberal in the White House," he said.

Schroth, the pollster, agreed.

"The best nominee is the guy with the Democratic label next to his name if George Bush's performance ratings are in the low 40s," he said. "At that point the answer to the question wouldn't matter. If it's a close race, it would matter."

Veteran Democratic operative Paul Johnson hopes the choice between revving up the base and reaching for the middle proves to be a false one.

"I don't know if the two are mutually exclusive, but if I had to choose between them I'd pick someone who's electable," said Johnson, one of the few Democratic campaign managers who won races in 2002 and who now leads Florida Sen. Bob Graham's struggling presidential campaign. "But a big part of being electable is being able to mobilize and excite your base."

- Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

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