Challengers find their voices
Originally published in the Denver Post
Challengers find their voices
By John Aloysius Farrell, Denver Post Washington Bureau
ALBUQUERQUE - There was no clear victor in Thursday night's debate of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, but it was easy to spot a potential loser: George W. Bush.
For 90 minutes, the eight Democrats pummeled a president who has dominated the American political landscape for the past two years but now has troubles at home and abroad, with the loss of jobs in the U.S. and rising casualties in Iraq.
Whatever deference Bush has enjoyed as commander in chief in the war on terror is forfeited. As Americans begin to turn their attention to the choice of a new president, Bush's challengers have found their voices.
"This president is a miserable failure," said Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
"We have young men and women in a shooting gallery right now, and the primary reason is this president had no plan" to administer Iraq and "stubbornly" refuses to change his ways, said North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
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It wasn't all Bush bashing. As might be expected, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, whose summer surge in fundraising and popularity has raised him to the head of the pack, bore the brunt of a few intramural salvos.
If Dean's protectionist trade policies are adopted, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut alleged, "the Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression."
When Dean responded by clarifying his stance, Lieberman shot back: "That is a reassuring change of position."
At another point, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich suggested that Dean's success balancing Vermont's tiny state budget does not prepare him for the kinds of choices that will confront him if he becomes president.
"You can talk about balancing the budget in Vermont, but Vermont doesn't have a military," Kucinich said. "Hello?"
The Democrats also differed on whether to repeal the middle-class portions of the Bush tax cuts, with Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts wanting to keep the middle-class cuts, while Dean and Gephardt said they should be repealed and the money used to expand health care coverage.
"You cannot pay for health insurance if you have those tax cuts ... including the tax cuts of middle-class people," Dean said.
But the night's target was Bush. Over and over again, in regional accents that ranged from the South to the Midwest to New England, Democrats leveled criticism at the president.
"The president goes around the country speaking Spanish, but the only Spanish he speaks when it comes to losing jobs is hasta la vista," said Edwards, with a nod toward Hispanic voters.
"This administration has frittered away goodwill, failed to go after al-Qaeda and bin Laden, thumbed our nose at old Europe and left the troops in the field without the material they need," said former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.
Bush has awesome advantages as the battle commences. He will raise hundreds of millions of dollars; has a united party behind him; can command media attention and basks in the goodwill he earned with his handling of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan.
Yet much of Bush's popularity was won in a vacuum. As Lieberman pointed out, at a time of national peril the opposition party muzzles itself.
"When American men and women in uniform go into battle, there is not an inch of space between any of us," Lieberman said.
No more. The night's debate left open the question of which - if any - of the Democratic candidates has the talent to topple Bush, but they obviously are no longer muzzled.
Americans will hear a lot about Bush's failures in the next 14 months. And the Democrats clearly see the messy aftermath of Bush's victory in Iraq as a route to undermine Bush's record as commander in chief.
Sen. Bob Graham of Florida charged Bush with the responsibility for the daily deaths of U.S. soldiers and the "10 per day being wounded and maimed in Iraq during this time of occupation."
"The swagger of a president who says 'bring 'em on' does not bring our troops safety," Kerry said.
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