Too little, too late?

With the Iraq vote behind them, Democrats are desperately trying to shift the public's focus to the staggering economy. But time is running out.

By Eric Boehlert

Oct 24, 2002 | Ten months ago, with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still a raw wound and the public rallying around President Bush, the best-case scenario for nervous Democrats was that the economic downturn would help them maintain their tenuous, one-seat hold on the Senate and to wrest the House away from Republicans. If only in political terms, they got just what they wanted.

Anemic corporate earnings have sent the swooning Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 40 percent since Bush took office. There are 2 million fewer jobs under Bush's watch and incomes are down, mortgage foreclosures are at record highs, and ballooning government budget deficits have reappeared. Fewer Americans are covered by health insurance, and for the first time in a decade more are living in poverty. And consumer confidence just dropped to a nine-year low.

"Clearly that's not a good sign for the party in power," says Daniel Mitchell, chief economy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. "My guess is Republicans are vulnerable. But does Iraq or terrorism trump that? I don't pretend to know."

In a reversal of fortune, voters now trust Democrats to do a better job handling economic issues, according to a recent Pew Center for the People and the Press poll. And according to Ed Kilgore, policy director at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, such a climate calls for a simple strategy: "The single best thing Democrats can do is talk about the economy."

But some evidence suggests it simply may not matter. Most of the headlines over the last six weeks have been dominated by threats of war with Iraq and more recently by the sniper killings outside Washington. Poll after poll shows voters are apprehensive about the economy, that they think it's the most important issue and want President Bush to devote more attention to it -- and less to Iraq. But surveys also show Democrats remain locked in tight races across the country, unable to pull away by blaming Republicans for the weak economy. Most election experts are reluctant to predict which way key races will go, but some say Democrats may fail to close the GOP's six-seat margin in the House and may also lose the Senate.

"It's so razor-thin close, I don't know what's going to take shape," says independent pollster John Zogby, who is tracking races in 18 states. "But if the vote were held today, I think Republicans would pick up one seat in the Senate and two seats in the House."

Democrats clearly have failed to get consistent thrust from the economic issue, and Republicans, led by the White House, are projecting a sense of confidence. Some analysts counter that the voter dissatisfaction may be taking shape underground, undetected by pollsters, and that only on Election Day will it be clear that they blame the Republicans for the bearish stock market, shrinking retirement plans and surging unemployment.

And where political and economic experts note that the unprecedented talk of war on terrorism and on Saddam Hussein has profoundly shifted the landscape, often in favor of Republicans, the topic of war may have peaked for news consumers living in the relentless 24-hour news cycle. Other unique dynamics are at work: Bush's unusually high approval ratings, which remain in the 60s; and a feeling that Democrats, shying away from criticizing Bush's tax cut, have not articulated a clear economic agenda, and that voters in general are less convinced that the White House exerts real control over today's more complicated economy. "The economy is a harder sell and takes a little longer," says Kilgore.

Perhaps nothing is harder than trying to change the topic away from war. "Are you better off than you were two years ago, or 14 months ago? No, but Democrats have not been able to break through the noise of war," says Zogby. "Part of Democrats' difficulty is they stayed in D.C., where all the talk was of war. They should've gone home and gotten local media and held town meetings and been talking about the economy. They got played by Republicans, basically."

But already in the weeks since the congressional resolution on Iraq was passed, and with the U.S. getting bogged down in negotiations at the United Nations over a new Security Council resolution, the rhetoric surrounding the war with Iraq has been ratcheted down considerably, with some experts now predicting no military action will take place until spring. "The timing may not be that bad for Democrats," says Kilgore.

The conventional wisdom for this fall had been that if the public debate centered on war with Iraq, Republican candidates, who are traditionally seen as stronger on security issues, would benefit. If the debates revolved around the faltering economy and sinking stock market, then lunch-bucket Democrats were given the advantage.

What's curious is that the war and the economy seem locked in an odd, yin-yang kind of dance. In what supply-side guru Jude Wanniski has dubbed the Saddam stock market, each time the White House rattles war sabers -- an act that should benefit Republican candidates -- the stock market gets the jitters and dips, which emboldens Democrats to complain about the White House's handling of the economy. Conversely, when diplomacy moves to the forefront, as it has recently with the United States, the stock market responded with a week's worth of gains, its first in nearly two months.

"When the news all points in the direction of war, the markets head south in a hurry," says Wanniski. "The market likes peace." That presents Bush with a dilemma in the next 12 days: If he hits the campaign trail with a war cry to galvanize voters, he'll have to hope the stock market does not drop dramatically. And if he emphasizes peace, the topic would recede from the headlines and give Democrats a chance to pound the economy.

Next Page: Bush's damaging tax cuts: A sensitive issue for Democrats

• View blog reactions