Democrats Heap Criticism on Bush

NEW YORK —  A parade of potential Democratic presidential candidates Monday faulted the Bush administration’s handling of the economy, seeing it as an opportunity for the party’s success in November’s congressional elections and the 2004 race for the White House.

One by one, Sens. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts picked apart President Bush’s response to the corporate accounting scandals that have roiled Wall Street and sent shivers through the voting public--70% of whom own stock, according to the most recent surveys.

But perhaps the strongest criticism, and certainly the critique presented with the most passion, was leveled by a Democrat currently considered a possible presidential candidate at some point after the 2004 campaign: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

“This administration is all blame and no game plan,” she said in a crowd-pleasing 40-minute attack. “They don’t come up with new ideas; they just come up with new P.R.”

She and the others spoke to the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group holding an annual conference that attracted 700 people, roughly half of them elected officials.

Missing was Al Gore, who served as vice president under Clinton’s husband and narrowly lost his bid to succeed him in the 2000 race. Gore, who is mulling another presidential run in 2004, cited a scheduling conflict--a pressing deadline for finishing a book due out in November. He and many of the same group spoke to a Democratic audience in Florida in April.

The Democratic Leadership Council is well-known within the party, but little-known outside it. While the council does not control significant organizational or financial resources, it has played an important role in providing candidates a platform for their ideas and in promoting centrist credentials. Bill Clinton’s successful race to the Democratic presidential nomination effectively began in a May 1991 speech to a council convention where he sketched out what became his “third way” agenda.

The group strongly supported Gore as he defeated former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) for the 2000 nomination. But Gore’s embrace of a more liberal message in the general election campaign alienated most council members, and most of its leaders are cool toward a second Gore candidacy.

Privately, many would prefer that Lieberman, Gore’s 2000 running mate, seek the nomination. But with Lieberman’s status uncertain, the group currently resembles a jockey without a mount.

Lieberman previously said he would not run if Gore does. But lately, he has seemed to give himself some wiggle room on that pledge. He has said he would hope Gore would decide by the end of the year, suggesting he might go ahead and declare his candidacy if Gore hasn’t.

At the leadership council gathering, he also took steps to distance himself from Gore. He said in interviews that he believed Gore made a mistake with his populist rhetoric during the 2000 campaign.

“I’m hopeful that Al will not run that kind of campaign” if he seeks the nomination again, Lieberman said on CNN on Tuesday.

The leadership council meeting took place as leading Democrats--after holding much of their political fire for months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks--have begun to more freely criticize on an array of issues. Indeed, Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, devoted most of his address to a sharp critique of Bush’s handling of the anti-terrorism campaign, and he encouraged his fellow Democrats not to shy from discussing the performance of the commander-in-chief.

Also, the gyrations of the stock market, fueled by one report after another of corporate accounting misdeeds, have given Democrats new ammunition to aim at Republicans.

“When it comes to the economy, and the current crisis in confidence, the president and his Republican friends in Congress have responded with timidity instead of toughness, with obsolete ideas and outdated ideologies, and with special favors for special interests,” Lieberman said.

He added: “This administration has no growth strategy, except their one-note plan that could fit on the back of a shampoo bottle: ‘Cut taxes, increase spending, borrow. Repeat.’ ”

Daschle and Kerry sounded similar notes.

“The economy is in trouble, and there is no economic leadership coming from the White House today,” Daschle said. “We are the ones providing true economic leadership.”

Kerry focused on the return of a federal budget deficit after surpluses had marked the last years of Clinton’s White House tenure.

Bush has blamed the deficits on an economic recession that began in early 2001, the economic effect of the Sept. 11 attacks and the costs of the war in Afghanistan and the anti-terrorism campaign. But Democrats put much of the blame on the $1.35-trillion, 10-year tax cut that Bush pushed through Congress in the spring of 2001.

“In the span of a year, this administration has turned fiscal responsibility on its ear,” Kerry said, adding, “They have no domestic agenda besides a tax cut.”

Scheduled to speak to the leadership council convention today are two other prominently mentioned contenders for the 2004 Democratic nomination next: House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

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Times staff writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.