Dems seek new tough-guy image - The Hill 5/17/05

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Dems seek new tough-guy image
By Alexander Bolton

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are working behind the scenes to bolster their party’s national-security credentials, planning to pose a stronger challenge in a policy area that Republicans have dominated in recent years.

Polls last year showed that, while Democrats equaled or surpassed Republicans in public approval in a number of policy areas, more Americans trusted President Bush and Republicans to manage the war on terrorism competently. Their perceived supremacy on national security emerged a week after Election Day as a principal reason for Bush’s victory, according to pollsters and political scientists who met at Stanford University last November to parse data.

Democrats realize that, if they are to be more competitive at the polls in 2006 and 2008, they will have to be more credible in voters’ eyes on security issues. That is the political context for the ramping-up of Democratic activity, led by Reid and Pelosi, in the traditionally GOP-dominated policy area.

Reid and Pelosi’s national-security staffs are in touch with each other several times a week. Reid and Pelosi aides describe it as “a joint operation.”

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On the staff level, Reid’s aides have organized several meetings between about 50 Democratic aides and a group of national-security experts. The experts who have met with staff members include retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander; Rand Beers, who served as foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) presidential campaign; and Brookings Institution scholars Susan Rice and James Steinberg. Three or four more of these meetings are expected to take place in the next 10 weeks, Democratic aides said.

more ... The Hill 5/17/05