Dems Urged To Sit In Nat'l Sec. Catbird Seat

A new strategy memo sent to Democratic presidential candidates by the DNC and Third Way warns that if the party doesn't tip the evolving national security debate in their favor, Republicans could easily regain their sizable advantage over Democrats on that particular issue. As recently as '04, independents turned to Pres. Bush because Dems -- John Kerry -- was ill-perceived.

The "significant test" faced by Democrats: "they must ensure that the short term gain in public opinion does not contribute to a long term deficit in public confidence."

What does that mean in non-pollsterese? Democrats need to convince voters that their anti-terrorism strategy puts America on the offense against threats.

Every time Democrats talk about security, whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, or any other threat, they should note their plans for success that would put us on the offense against our nation’s enemies.

This sounds obvious, but many Democrats still speak of their anti-terrorism policies as primarily defensive, and they have trouble translating concepts -- like a global effort to re-engage Islam -- into national security precepts. Many Dems are reluctant to use words like "offense" and "proactive," because the administration has successfully drawn a circle around that part of the debate. Dems don't want "offense" to equal pre-emptive strikes against sovereign states. Instead, they equate "offense" with intervention in Kosovo and Afghanistan, two perfectly reasonable examples that might not resonate with security-conscious voters.

Republicans, and Rudy Giuliani in particular, have framed the offense-defense dichotomy as follows: if we don't get 'em overseas, they'll get us here. That elides easily into efforts to link Democratic date-setting in Congress to surrendering. The memo cites Giuliani:

If any Republican is elected president – and I think obviously I would be the best at this – we will remain on offense and will anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it.
I listen a little to the Democrats, and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.

The good news for Dems: national polling suggests that voters aren't reacting to that argument particularly well. The bad news for Dems: Dems aren't getting the benefit of the doubt either. Independents still believe that Dems are:

• “They are unwilling to use military force, event when it’s necessary to protect America” (59-38%) (Even a small majority of Democrats ascribed this more to their own party than to Republicans.)
• “They are not tough enough to do what is needed to protect America” (57-41%)

The solutions are:

(a) pretend this problem doesn't exist
(b) assume it's not enough of a problem to matter
(c) resell old policies using new language
(d) come up with new policies that directly address this concern
(e) figure out how to defenstrate national security from its (still) Republican framing.

Here's the full memo. BTW: one of the authors, Cornell Belcher, is a pollster for Barack Obama and for the DNC.