DEMS NEED TO TAKE OFF THE GLOVES, BUT WATCH WHERE THEY'RE PUNCHING

After reading this article, I was convinced that Salon.com's Talbot had underwent a mind-meld with Jeff Hauser. It looks at David Brock's expose on the dirty tricks played by the hard-right in the Clinton years, and compares this with the kittenish approach of the Gore campaign in the Flordia recount. Talbot-Hauser is dead right about the crying need for a more combatative Democratic party. The roll-over on the Bush tax-cut was a gutless abandonment of principle on a winnable issue. On the flip-side, the carping at the Bush administration's foreign policy has ranged from muddled to incoherent. So how should a re-fanged Democratic party address the following issues.

Fiscal Policy: Go out and win the tax-cut debate. Wrap spending in the flag if necessary, but frame the debate in the following way. Reasonable people can disagree about whether to prioritize: (a) fiscal discipline (Save Social Security!) and (b) meeting the nations needs in heatlh care, education, and national security (Keep America Strong!). What they agree on is that keeping the tax-cut is a crazy idea of the dogmatic right (The Republicans would rather give Kenny Boy a tax break than pay for competant airport screeners).

Education: Here the Dems need to use Bush's compassionate conservative rhetoric against him by forcing him to either (a) split with his party or (b) veto increased education spending. One idea is to put in a bill that doesn't try to be a catch-all answer to educational problems, but focuses on one - say physical infrastructure. I'm sure a good attack ad could be gleaned from footage at dilapidated public schools.

Environment: Bush's credibility on this issue is negligible. The Dems have to take the bite and become the party for serious energy conservation - it is an issue that in the long-term will pay major dividends. I think they should follow the New Republic's lead of calling SUV's Saudi Utility Vehicles, or even better Sadaam's Utility Vehicles. At every possible juncture, Bush's energy policy should be linked with domestic big energy (after all didn't they write it) and terror-funding oil producers. Put the flag-wavers in the GOP on the defensive.

Domestic Security The grass-roots will want to go after Ashcroft and his overreaching on civil liberties. Big mistake - that's exactly the debate the Republicans want to have on the issue. Instead the Dems need to frame this as the Republican hostility to government getting in the way of America's security. They didn't want federally employed airport scanners, they constantly gutting regulations - we need the Dems as a watchdog.

Judicial Appointments: Hold the line until Bush puts forward moderate appointees. The Republicans suffered minimal political cost with their stall tactics in the Clinton years, and significantly thwarted any attempt to significantly alter the ideological balance in the federal judiciary.

National Service Wasn't this supposed to be Bush's central domestic initiative post 9/11. It's an open secret that the Congressional GOP hates the idea. All the more reason for the Dems to enthusiastically "get behind our president" on this issue.

Foreign Policy Tread lightly here. While the New York Times and Europe may want a more nuanced foreign policy, middle America loves Bush's black-and-white positions on the war on terror. The Achilles heel however is the stated opposition to nation-building. Framing a foreign aid bill as a terror-prevention issue would make the more isolationist GOP reps squirm.

Overall, the implicit message in 2002 has to be while you might like what the Bushies are doing abroad, only we can protect you at home. It's a message that plays away from Bush's strengths, and to the GOP's weaknesses - and it is a message that can win control of Congress if the Dems are willing to come out and fight this time.