Two questions will dominate the 2004 presidential campaign: how to make the United States secure in an age of terror, and how to get the economy to work for all Americans. George W. Bush's responses have been to call for unilateral pre-emptive wars and high-end tax cuts. With US soldiers continuing to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the President presiding over the worst job contraction since the Great Depression, voters are starting to look for better answers. In the first primary debate, Democratic presidential candidates argued alternatives to the Bush war doctrine and the Iraq debacle. The next official debate, on September 25, will focus on the economy. It comes as the Administration hails the economy's sputtering revival. But even with renewed growth, Bush is likely to be the first President since Herbert Hoover to end his first term having lost rather than produced jobs.

Democratic candidates should lay out a clear critique of Bush's failures and an alternative growth agenda. The main problem with Bush's economic policies is not the deficits per se but what produced them: primarily tax cuts for the wealthy and the pre-emptive wars. America would have been far better served if we'd invested that money in education, energy independence, vital infrastructure and domestic security needs. These would have put Americans to work, avoided destructive cuts of school programs now cascading through the states and prevented long-term fiscal imbalance.

The Democratic candidates must also address the unsustainable $500 billion annual trade deficit, which records a hemorrhaging of jobs in the manufacturing, high-tech and service industries. Vulnerable on this key issue, Bush is now rolling out a public relations campaign--starting with the appointment of a "jobs czar" in the Commerce Department--to show he cares. Democrats should go beyond such gestures to serious policy proposals. It is one sign of progress that major Democratic candidates now pledge to support future trade accords only if they protect labor rights and the environment.

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