The Left's Mr. Right?

Despite a strong sense among most Democrats that Bush has changed the country radically for the worse, it's not even clear yet how valuable the Democratic nomination will turn out to be. The president is starting to sag in the polls, with questions about his credibility, broken promises and fiscal management --finally sticking. But if the economy rebounds and produces new jobs and family-income growth (the key indicators to watch politically), he'll be hard for anyone to beat. And even in a so-so economy, he's still seen by most voters as a likable wartime leader.

The old Will Rogers line--"I'm a member of no organized political party; I'm a Democrat"--seems especially apt this year. The party is not so much divided ideologically as it is confused tactically. The old labels are increasingly useless. Dean, for instance, is hardly an old-fashioned big- spending liberal. As governor from 1991 to 2002, he repeatedly balanced the budget, though Vermont is the only state that doesn't require him to do so by law; the NRA gives him high ratings. Graham of Florida, usually thought of as a moderate, is a relentless critic of the Iraq war.

Most of the intraparty domestic-policy disputes are at the margins, though that will hardly make them any less fierce. The growing clash between those who favor full repeal of the Bush tax cuts (Dean and Gephardt) versus the others who favor partial repeal is a tactical--not ideological-- struggle over whether the full repealers can later be stigmatized by Bush for raising taxes on the middle class. (All the Democrats want to use Bush's tax cuts for health care, a popular trade-off in the polls.) Like the squabbling over the war, the tax debate is at bottom about how best to play defense and inoculate themselves against the $200 million Bush media barrage, plus the talk- radio/cable-TV "elephant echo chamber" that is sure to amplify the GOP message.

The Democrats' biggest problem is that they, too, often look weak, especially when they fail to confront the party's own single-issue activists. "The interest groups don't really like to win," says James Carville, who helped his old client Clinton stand up to the special pleaders in 1992. "They just want a big ass-kissing festival." Carville says the Democrats lag behind the competition in this area: "The Republicans don't make Bush go to the NRA convention and hold an assault weapon up over his head for the crowd." Carville suggests that instead of Dean's going before abortion-rights activists and pledging his support for late-term abortion (which could prove harmful in a general election) or Lieberman's apologizing to the NAACP for not attending its convention, some candidate should advocate civil unions before the Baptist convention or oppose the war at the American Legion. That would show strength, he says.

Dean's answer to that challenge is to play hard-charging offense--even when it proves offensive to other Democrats. He first broke through at the winter party meeting by grabbing the late liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone's line that he is from "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." This tapped in perfectly to the anger many Democrats felt toward the Washington party establishment for going soft on Bush.

And he's in sync with the underlying dynamics of his party's nominating sys-tem. Orderly Republicans have for half a century nominated through primogeniture--the candidate whose "turn" it is gets the nod. Rebellious Democrats usually nominate through insurgency--outsiders who storm the barricades. One danger for Dean--and his people know it--is that he may have peaked too soon, leaving room for another entrant to ride a popular wave.