Question: The case for civil liberties and against presidential power will "work" for Dems - or the GOP - the party of protection in a nation that wants protection? While a demonstration of strength and conviction is always a winner compared to being a "flip/flopper", will having such a spine work on a "loser" issue and impress the voters?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-civil25jan25,0,1576651.story?track=tottext,0,3259362.story?track=tothtmlDemocrats May Argue Liberties to Their Peril
The GOP appears eager to portray the challenge to presidential authority as weakness on security.
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer
January 25, 2006
WASHINGTON — Leading Democrats are challenging President Bush's record on civil liberties across a wide front, inspiring a Republican counterattack that even some Democratic strategists worry could threaten the party in this year's elections.
From Bush's authorization of warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency to renewal of the Patriot Act, the president and his critics are battling more intently than at any time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks over the proper balance between national security and personal liberty.
In each of these disputes, prominent Democrats — joined by a few Republicans — accuse Bush of improperly expanding presidential power and dangerously constricting the rights of Americans. Bush and his allies have fired back by escalating charges that Democrats would weaken America's security by imposing unreasonable restraints on the president.
These exchanges establish contrasts familiar from debates over law enforcement and national security throughout the 1970s and '80s, with most Republicans arguing for tough measures and many Democrats focusing on the defense of constitutional protections. <snip>
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/13703872.htmHow will terror issue play in '06?
By Dick Polman
Inquirer Political Analyst
<snip>Painting the Democrats as national security wimps worked well in 2002; even Max Cleland, the triple-amputee war hero from Georgia, was depicted as a threat to the homeland and voted out of his Senate seat. The Republicans regained control of the Senate, expanded their majority in the House, and have ruled Capitol Hill ever since.
<snip>The Bush administration hopes so. Given the toxic political climate, Republicans can ill afford to lose either chamber in November; it's a cinch bet that majority Democrats, armed with subpoena power, would launch numerous congressional probes on every facet of the Iraq war, just for starters. Hence Rove's desire to reprise 2002 - this time, by seeking to paint Democrats as weaklings because of their concerns about the President's warrantless-surveillance program.<snip>
Despite all this public restiveness, most Democrats don't seem eager to confront Bush and Rove directly on this issue. No Democrat in Congress has demanded that the NSA program be suspended until hearings (slated to start Feb. 6) are completed. The minority party still seems worried that Bush's visceral argument about protecting lives has more punch with the average person than the more abstract argument about legal niceties.
<snip>Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, took a stab at the problem yesterday. He sought in a speech to demonstrate that Democrats need to out-macho Bush, to contend that they will be even tougher on terrorists - that they, unlike Bush, would secure our ports, give troops enough body armor, and track al-Qaeda operatives without threatening to "trample" the Constitution.<snip>
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