Earlier this month we commented on a dumb debate within the Democratic Party that posed a false choice between political strategies aimed at "energizing the party base" and those aimed at pursuing the swing voters who typically decide close elections. You have to do both, we argued. But there's a parallel, and equally dumb, debate now underway among Democrats about whether to make exhibitions of anger and personal disdain towards George W. Bush a litmus test of presidential candidates and the main theme of the 2004 effort to send the president back to Crawford.

The New York Times' Robin Toner made this debate one of the main focuses of her summary of the presidential contest yesterday. And the cover package of the current issue of The New Republic is devoted to the same topic.

The debate is dumb because there is more than enough evidence about Bush's actual, objective record to build a case for his retirement that will both energize Democrats and persuade swing voters. Making white-hot anger towards Bush and his minions the central thrust of the 2004 campaign threatens to keep Democrats from making a positive presentation of their own principles and agenda for governing. It's especially ironic that many activists who consider themselves the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" are trying to define themselves not by Democratic values or policy goals, but simply as the polar opposite of whatever position George W. Bush takes.

The idea that Democrats must choose between Bush-hatred and "Bush Lite" is simply wrong. The DLC, for example, has excoriated the circumstances under which Bush gained office; the false promises he made throughout the 2000 elections; and his domestic and foreign policies since then -- as often, as thoroughly, and even as angrily as anyone in the Democratic Party. Our indictment of the Bush record, as laid out in the current issue of Blueprint magazine, is more comprehensive than you can find in any other Democratic periodical. When he took office, we accused him of wanting to replace the successful policies of the 1990s with unsuccessful policies from the 1980s. Now we are convinced he wants to pursue the policies of the 1890s.

But unlike some Democrats, we don't want to indict the American people for their failure to dislike George W. Bush, and we don't want to let Bush control the national political agenda while Democrats simply react negatively to everything he says and does. To succeed in 2004, Democrats will have to win the votes of at least one-fourth of those Americans who now give the president a positive personal assessment. That will require rational persuasion and a positive Democratic agenda for the country. (Our cut at that agenda is also included in the current issue of Blueprint.)

As President Bill Clinton wisely said in remarks to a DLC gathering in May, you beat an incumbent President by "giving people what they like about him, telling them something about him they don't know but wouldn't like if they did, and telling them what you'd do differently."

That's a fairly simple formula, but it can only be successfully applied by Democrats who are not blinded by rage or intoxicated by self-righteousness. A Democratic strategy based on Bush-hatred is likely to reward its object with another four years in office.