Wind blown out of Democrats' sails, for now

Monday, December 15, 2003

By Dan Balz and David S. Broder, The Washington Post

In a presidency marked by big events, few may be more vivid than yesterday's pictures of a haggard Saddam Hussein in U.S. captivity. His dramatic arrest provides a major political boost for President Bush and considerably complicates the task for the Democrats who have argued that Bush's foreign policy needs a significant overhaul.

Given the unpredictability of the process of stabilizing Iraq, Bush likely faces plenty of difficult days as he moves into an election year. In that case, said Republican and Democratic strategists, the impact of Saddam's arrest may have only a transitory impact on Bush's re-election prospects.

But after one of the bloodiest months in Iraq in terms of U.S. casualties since the war began, Saddam's capture represents the kind of concrete progress the administration had sought, one likely to bolster the president's case that his policy is working. With the economy also improving, both sides of the Democrats' argument to replace Bush appear notably weaker today than they did just a few weeks ago.

The news from Iraq also puts a new and potentially uncomfortable spotlight on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination whose candidacy gained energy, converts and money from his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq -- and who is scheduled to deliver a major foreign policy address today.

Dean's rivals, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, sought to use Saddam's capture to argue anew that Dean's inexperience in national security could prove an enormous liability to the party if he becomes the nominee in 2004. "If Howard Dean had his way," Lieberman told reporters, "Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison."

The other Democratic candidates hope Saddam's capture somehow will disrupt Dean's path to the nomination, but there was no consensus among Democratic or Republican strategists about how the sudden turn of fortune for Bush in Iraq may impact the Democratic race. The issue may highlight concerns with the party about Dean's electability, but with much of the Democratic primary electorate staunchly opposed to the Iraq war, Saddam's capture alone may not result in significant erosion in Dean's support, according to several strategists.

Saddam's capture robs Democrats of one of their most telling arguments -- and best applause lines -- to highlight the unfinished business in Iraq. The arrest may not lead directly to fewer terrorist attacks in Iraq, as Bush was careful to point out yesterday in his nationally televised address, but it provides the kind of psychological shift that could put the Democrats on the defensive as they argue against his policy.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff noted that, coming almost a year before the election, even an event as compelling as Saddam's capture will not by itself make Bush impregnable in his re-election campaign. "What one hopes is this sets the stage for the cooperation we need and builds the argument as to why we removed him from power," he said. "If that happens, then everything else -- consumer confidence, increasing economic growth -- augur very well for Bush's re-election by a very significant margin."

Democratic pollster Peter Hart agreed that the capture of Saddam represents "the crown jewel in this military effort" and said Bush has accomplished what his father did not 12 years ago. "The question is where do we go from here," Hart said. "If this is indeed a turning point toward pacification, a sense of completion and a new Iraq, then I think the administration has succeeded in what they promised to do. But today is Day One in the next phase of the Iraq mission, and what we believed to be Day One, when we saw the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled, turned out to be a very chaotic and difficult period."

Bush's potential challengers uniformly hailed Saddam's capture, although some pivoted quickly to renew their criticism that, until Bush successfully turns the U.S. occupation of Iraq into an international operation, the danger to U.S. military personnel will continue and the American standing in the world will remain tarnished.

"This is a great opportunity for this president to get it right for the long term and I hope he will be magnanimous, reach out to the U.N., to allies who've stood away from us and use this as a moment to transform the entire operation in Iraq," Sen. John Kerry, Mass., said on "Fox News Sunday."

Dean, campaigning in Florida, passed up the opportunity to criticize the president. "This is a great day of pride in the American military, a great day for the Iraqi people and a great day for America," he told reporters. "I think President Bush deserves a day of celebration. We have our policy differences, but we won't be discussing them today."

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who also opposed the war, said: "I don't think that the capture of Saddam Hussein in any way invalidates those concerns [of whether this was the right war at the right time]," he said from The Hague, where he will testify in the war crimes trial of former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Of the four Democratic candidates who voted for the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war -- Lieberman, Kerry, Rep. Richard Gephardt, Mo., and Sen. John Edwards, N.C. -- Lieberman was by far the most aggressive in raising questions about Dean.

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