Democrats pitch 'national community' for 2008

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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) -- To hear Democrats tell it, an anxious and isolated public craves a sense of national community and would galvanize behind a leader who asks people to sacrifice for the greater good.

Former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, says he's that leader.

So does Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. And Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

The men, all likely presidential candidates in 2008, are toying with the same lofty community-and-purpose message.

"There is a hunger in America, a hunger for a sense of national community, a hunger for something big and important and inspirational that they all can be involved in," Mr. Edwards, the party's 2004 vice-presidential nominee, told delegates at a weekend convention of Florida Democrats.

"Americans don't want to believe that they are out there on an island all alone," Mr. Edwards said.

This is not a new theme for Democrats. As first lady, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York wrote "It Takes a Village," a book arguing that a community is an important part of a child's development. Her husband, President Clinton, tried to create a sense of national purpose when he asked Americans to help "build a bridge to the 21st century."

The difference now is that six of every 10 people tell pollsters that the country is headed down the wrong track. Democrats think they can put Republicans on the defensive by articulating the public's sense of malaise and offering hope to erase it.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has commissioned confidential polling and analyses that suggest candidates in 2006 and 2008 should frame their policies -- and attacks on Republicans -- around the context of community.

It seems to be the emerging message from a party that has been bereft of one.

"What's happening in this country is we're losing our sense of common purpose," Mr. Vilsack told Florida Democrats. "We're losing a sense of community."

Mr. Vilsack, expressing a view shared by both Mr. Warner and Mr. Edwards, said his party can win the values debate if they make community-building a Democratic virtue.

"If we do that, we will have success in elections, and we will be able to govern effectively," he said. "We need to use the sense of community to say to Americans that Democrats will keep them safe" and protect their interests in a fast-changing global economy.

Mr. Vilsack (adopted as a child), Mr. Edwards (raised in a middle-class mill town), and Mr. Warner (the first college graduate in his family) said their modest upbringings were successful because a community of people -- teachers, coaches and neighbors -- helped their parents support them.

"None of us got here on ourselves," Mr. Edwards said. "What we do together matters. What we do as a national community matters."