On Main Street, economy edges out Iraq

While Washington is fixing on the prospect of war with Iraq, voters are getting more anxious about the economy – a shift that's worrisome to some GOP candidates in close races.

A new public-opinion poll, released yesterday, shows that the economy and jobs is now the No. 1 issue for voters in the Nov. 6 congressional elections.

The reasons? Exhibit A is the plunging stock market. The Nasdaq market hit a six-year low last week. But other factors are at work. Companies like phone giant SBC Communications continued to lay off workers. And consumer confidence has been ebbing.

Yet, you'd hardly know it by listening to the issue dominating Capitol Hill, where talk has of late been all Iraq, all the time.

Democrats, aware that economic concerns can work in their favor on Election Day, have tried to steer public discourse in the direction of the economy. But, like stubborn compass needle, the White House has managed to pull public attention consistently toward the confrontation with Saddam Hussein.

That appears likely to change as Nov. 5 draws near. Democrats are sure to play up economic issues. And now, some Republican backbenchers are concerned that they not appear to be ignoring key voter concerns.

"We're playing like a football team that had a good first-half lead, and now we're trying to run out the clock and play defense. We're hoping that a focus on the war will take us through the election, and I don't think it will," says Rep. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina.

For weeks, members on both sides of the aisle toed their leadership's line on how to deal with the economy. Republicans were to avoid talking about it. GOP political advisers have been telling members to keep the focus on national security and the war, where President Bush, as a popular commander in chief, has an edge.

Meanwhile, Democrats were being advised to avoid a showdown with the president over Iraq and get the discussion back to issues like healthcare and the economy, where Democrats have an advantage, even if it meant toning down doubts on the war.

The Democrats tried. Two weeks ago, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle announced that he would devote the week to refocusing the national debate on the economy. On Sept. 18, he released a 30-page attack on the Bush economic record, which noted the loss of more than 2 millions jobs, a $4.5 trillion plunge in stock market wealth, and an increase of $3.8 trillion to the national debt. It all barely registered in the national news media. At the same time, Mr. Daschle said he would bring up a vote to support use of force in Iraq before the Senate breaks in mid-October. "Otherwise, it will be all Iraq all the time," he said.

But that strategy cracked last week, when leading Democrats from former Vice President Al Gore to liberal icon Ted Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts broke the near-silence and plunged into an attack on the president's strategy on Iraq. Daschle and others also charged that the president was using the war for political gain.

In the weekly Democratic radio address on Saturday, Sen. Robert Torricelli (D) of New Jersey tried to get the party back on message. "The president rightly seeks to marshal our national resolve against the purveyors of hatred and violence who have made America their target," he said. "But shouldn't we be equally as vigilant about attacking the economic challenges we now face?"

In fact, GOP ratings have picked up, since the war talk began in earnest in September. Approval both for President Bush and Republicans in Congress jumped more than 5 points since August, according to a Harris poll last week.

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