(The Washington Post published the following story by Dan Balz on its website on August 6.)
CHICAGO — Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) continued his battle with the Democrats’ liberal base tonight, telling an audience of union workers that foreign trade is good for the U.S. economy and warning against a return to policies that could lead the party to defeat against President Bush in 2004.
Lieberman avoided direct clashes with his rivals during a 90-minute candidates forum. He waited until his closing statement to reprise the argument he made Monday in Washington, that the candidacy of former Vermont governor Howard Dean — and, to a lesser extent, the candidacies of Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) — threaten to return the Democrats to the political wilderness.
“We’ve got a choice to make this year,” Lieberman said. “It’s a choice between the past and the future. . . . We’re not going to win by being opposed to all tax cuts, which would raise taxes on middle-class Americans. We’re not going to earn the trust of the American people by being weak or ambivalent on defense.”
Dean used his closing statement to argue that centrist policies will not defeat Bush, as he sought to answer a question many Democrats are asking about his insurgent candidacy: Could someone who opposed the war in Iraq defeat Bush?
Noting that he opposed the war and also wants to repeal Bush’s tax cuts, Dean said, “You can’t beat President Bush by trying to be like him. We tried that in 2002 and it didn’t work. . . . We need to stand up for ourselves again and take on the president directly.”
Through most of the forum, the nine candidates savaged Bush’s record on the economy and workers’ rights. They blamed Bush for the loss of nearly 3 million jobs since he was sworn into office in January 2001 and accused him of presiding over one of the most anti-worker administrations in history.
“This administration has declared war on the middle class in this country,” Gephardt said. Saying Bush has the worst record on the economy of any president since Herbert Hoover at the start of the Depression, he added, “He’s got to go, for us to get jobs back in this country.”
The candidates accused Bush of rewarding the wealthy, failing to crack down adequately on corporate malfeasance and undermining the rights of workers.
“George W. Bush ran for president to be a unifier, not a divider,” Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) said. “He has been anything but. He has divided us by economics, he has divided us by gender, he has divided us by racial — by sexual orientation and he has divided us by generation.”
Decrying Bush’s policies as trickle-down economics, Kerry said, “I believe every worker in America is tired of being trickled on by George W. Bush.” Kerry said if he becomes president, “I look forward to appointing an attorney general who is not John Ashcroft, who will enforce the law, the antitrust laws.”
Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) said Bush and big corporations are undermining American values and hurting workers: “We need serious labor law reform to stop these companies from violating the law.”
The forum was sponsored by the AFL-CIO and came at the midpoint of two days of meetings by the group’s executive council, which is weighing whether to endorse one of the Democrats before the primaries and caucuses begin next winter. Only Gephardt has the potential to win labor’s endorsement, but at this point he appears to lack the necessary two-thirds support of labor’s 13 million members.
The 90-minute forum, nationally televised on C-SPAN, was moderated by National Public Radio’s Bob Edwards. The other participants were Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio), former Illinois senator and former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun and civil rights activist Al Sharpton. For the most part, the candidates competed to show their support for the labor agenda.
Two of the senators, Lieberman and Graham, defended their voting records in favor of free trade to an audience largely opposed to such policies. Lieberman told the audience that “support of free trade and fair trade was part of the Clinton-Gore economic record.” Graham said, “The United States does not have the choice to become a protectionism nation.”
But Graham pledged that, if elected, he would insist that future trade agreements include provisions to protect workers and the environment. Lieberman said Bush’s policies had created more jobs in China than in the United States.
Lieberman drew boos from the audience when he outlined his support for an experimental school voucher plan. “I’m going to say what I think is best for America, regardless,” he said.
Kucinich played the role of aggressor throughout the evening, and challenged his rivals to prove they were as pro-labor and pro-worker as he is by asking if they would repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Declaring that his would be a workers’ White House, he shouted, “Let’s see what other people will do on behalf of labor.”
The others let his comments go without responding, instead laying out their own plans for expanded health care, more money for education, additional aid to the states and more protections for workers.
The candidates’ health care plans varied widely, with Braun, Sharpton and Kucinich favoring a single-payer program and Gephardt calling for using virtually all of Bush’s tax cuts to fund his plan. Others have proposed smaller programs, but Kerry, taking aim at Lieberman, said the country “deserves a bigger, bolder” vision than that offered by the senator from Connecticut.
At one point, Kucinich accused Dean of favoring raising the retirement age to 68, which the former governor said he was amenable to doing during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in June. Tonight Dean took that off the table, saying, “I have never favored a Social Security retirement age of 70, nor do I favor one of 68.”
Both Dean and Graham said they would solve the looming financial crisis of Social Security in part by asking wealthy Americans to pay payroll taxes on a greater portion of their wages.
Earlier today, Gephardt accepted the endorsement of the United Steelworkers Association and appeared with steelworkers president Leo Gerard and other union members across the street from where the AFL-CIO executive committee was meeting.
“He’s the heart and soul and voice and conscience of working people, who throughout his career has stood up for the values of working people,” Gerard said.
The steelworkers union’s endorsement brought to 10 the number of unions that have announced their support for Gephardt. This weekend, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will formally declare its support as well.
(Staff researcher Brian Faler in Washington contributed to this report.)