Bush goes populist, hitting CEOs

When Al Gore spoke of "the people versus the powerful" during the 2000 campaign, critics ridiculed the slogan as out of touch, a strident populism that didn't resonate among content voters who were still riding out the boom years of the 1990s.

But as Washington scrambles to react to the latest wave of corporate scandals, amid rising unemployment and shrinking retirement plans, both parties are now beginning to adopt elements of a populist crusade as their own.

Republicans and Democrats alike are suddenly sounding a bit like William Jennings Bryan, as they rush to act like defenders of the common man. Democrats, sensing an issue where Republicans and President Bush may be vulnerable, are making accounting reform their top priority in the Senate this week, while the House Democratic campaign committee is holding "investors' bill of rights" events in targeted districts around the nation.

Not to be outdone, Republicans have berated WorldCom executives at recent House committee hearings, and are calling for bipartisan reforms. In his speech on Wall Street Tuesday, Mr. Bush even invoked Teddy Roosevelt's antitrust stance, calling for the creation of a "corporate fraud task force," as well as tougher criminal penalties for dishonest executives.

The new tone reflects how persistent populism is as a strain of US politics – and how different the political world of 2002 is from that of 2000. While Bush emphasized his business experience during the 2000 campaign, promising to run the White House like a major corporation, those same assets could prove a liability in the current climate – particularly given the recent questions about his role in a stock sale that was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

And although the war on terror could prove a significant factor for voters this November, economic concerns seem increasingly likely to play a major role as well. "Ordinary people now have a set of economic conditions they're not pleased with, and an identifiable set of villains," says William Galston, a political scientist at the University of Maryland and a former Gore adviser. "This is a classic formula for a successful populist message."

Most analysts agree that these conditions play to Democrats' strengths. While both parties have employed populist rhetoric at different times over the years, Democratic populism has long focused on the misdeeds of economic elites, whereas Republican populists such as Ronald Reagan tend to target government or intellectual elites, explains Michael Kazin, author of "The Populist Persuasion."

Democrats argue that they're the only party truly willing to take on corporate corruption. They blame the recent scandals on the "permissive environment" created by congressional Republicans' dismantling of regulations in recent years, and highlight the Bush administration's pro-business stances on a range of issues from taxes to environmental regulations.

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