Yeutter’s Attack on Democrats Stirs Up Political Firestorm : Partisanship: Foley accuses Bush choice for GOP post of using ‘scare tactic’ in citing votes against war resolution.

Clayton K. Yeutter, President Bush’s choice to become the Republican Party’s new chairman, has stirred up a political firestorm by declaring that Democratic lawmakers who voted against authorizing Bush to go to war in the Persian Gulf should be held accountable at the polls.

In a speech to the Lincoln, Neb., Rotary Club on Tuesday and later amplified in a press interview, Yeutter said that Democratic lawmakers “are scrambling now to rationalize their votes.”

After the speech, when asked whether Democrats in Congress would be vulnerable on any issue next year, he replied: “They are certainly vulnerable on their votes on the Persian Gulf conflict. I would guess that about 90% of those folks wish now that they (had) cast their votes the other way, because they picked the wrong side in the viewpoint of the American public. And, if the conflict continues to go well, that will be a very significant factor in the near future.”

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) accused Yeutter, the outgoing secretary of agriculture, of using a “political scare tactic” against Democrats. He said Yeutter’s comments were “almost disreputable,” since Democrats in Congress closed ranks behind Bush and the American troops in the gulf as soon as allied war operations began.

Democratic Party Chairman Ron Brown also expressed outrage at Yeutter’s remarks. “At a time when men and women are risking their lives in the Persian Gulf, it is a disgrace that some are playing petty party politics, trying to divide our country and jockey for political advantage,” he said.

However, in a signal that Republicans plan to exploit the war as a political issue, GOP leaders in the House and Senate defended Yeutter. They noted that Democrats provided most of the negative votes when the Senate, by a vote of 52 to 47, and the House, by a vote of 250 to 183, approved the resolution authorizing the President to attack Iraq.

Moreover, Bush, when asked about Yeutter’s comments during a photo session at the White House with Republican congressional leaders Thursday, declined to comment on the controversy.

“We don’t believe that the gulf conflict is a partisan issue,” said Marlin Fitzwater, the President’s press secretary. “On the other hand, it . . . will be noted, I’m sure, that there was a certain partisanship about the way the votes were cast.”

Yeutter, who is from Eustis, Neb., not far from Lincoln, also criticized Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) of Lincoln. Kerrey, a Medal of Honor winner, lost a leg in combat in the Vietnam War. Yeutter said Kerry was “enunciating positions that are not consistent with those of the majority of the American public.” He added that Americans do not share “the negative and depressed viewpoint” of Kerrey, who opposed the war resolution and favored giving economic sanctions more time to work.

In a Senate floor speech, Kerrey called Yeutter’s comments “deeply troubling” and said they were an “attempt to politicize this war and to define victory in terms of electoral gain rather than policy achievements.”

Kerrey asked Bush to reconsider Yeutter’s appointment as the new Republican Party chairman or to “ask him to hold his tongue at least until our soldiers are safe again.”

The Republican National Committee opened a two-day meeting here Thursday and was scheduled to name Yeutter as the new chairman today to succeed Lee Atwater, who is critically ill with a brain tumor.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), the third-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said that “most of the Democrats in Congress voted to the left of the United Nations on the issue, and that’s a fact. The voters will have to consider that.”

House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) added: “If the war goes badly . . . and people are suddenly looking for scapegoats, Republicans who voted for the war resolution could be attacked by Democrats.”

But Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) said Republicans in his state were trying to use the same strategy against him by criticizing his vote against the war resolution. But he indicated that he felt his decision would prove correct in the long run.

“Wait till next year at this time,” Hollings said. “Those kinds of things will change around as time goes on.”

Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), who voted against the war resolution and advocated giving sanctions more time to work, said that “for Yeutter to try to capitalize on one of the most searing, soul-searching decisions we’ve ever had to make is politics at its worst.”

Staff writers Paul Houston and James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.