8 Demos make pitches to head party

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Eight candidates vying to lead the Democratic Party called Saturday for the party to compete aggressively in all states, even those that routinely vote Republican in presidential races.

Kicking off their campaigns to replace Terry McAuliffe as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the eight candidates — all men — spoke to a convention of state party chairmen and chairwomen. A successor to McAuliffe will be elected in February.

The comments by the eight echoed numerous state party officials who complained that the national party and the John Kerry presidential campaign focused too much time and money on fewer than 20 battleground states while ignoring the rest.

There was no shortage of advice on how to win them over.

Nancy Jane Woodside, vice chairwoman of the Utah Democratic Party, said Democrats have to change their habit of "laundry listing" the country's problems and come up with solutions that can be easily explained.

Woodside noted that John Kerry was always telling people to visit his Web site to read about his plans, something only the intellectual elite will do, not voters glued to the television waiting to hear answers.

"I'm sick of it," she said. "Tell me what you are going to do. Democratic Party, what are you going to do? I don't want the laundry hung out any more."

That criticism came from an activist who has known Kerry since the days when they both opposed the Vietnam War. Woodside also said she wished Kerry would have campaigned a little in her home state of Utah where she likely would have pulled him aside.

"I would have been able to teach him how to talk to people outside of that Beltway language he's used to," she said of the four-term Massachusetts senator.

Potential candidates are former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb; former presidential candidate Howard Dean; former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard; defeated Rep. Martin Frost of Texas; political strategist Donnie Fowler; Simon Rosenberg, founder and president of the centrist New Democrat Network; former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk and former Clinton adviser Harold Ickes.

All vowed to work more closely with state party organizations and send more campaign money to the states. Most also promised to shun Washington-based advice in favor of listening more to Democrats from around the country.

"We cannot have a message that comes from Washington consultants," said Dean, the best known of the candidates. "We're going to build this message starting from you, building from the ground up."

He noted that his political group, Democracy for America, supported Democrats who won in such places as Alabama by talking about core issues such as jobs and health care. "If you don't run, you can't win," Dean said. "We need a 50 state strategy, not an 18-state strategy."

Webb said the party needs to expand its base, particularly in conservative states. In West Virginia, he said, Democrats have to find a way to talk to voters chiefly concerned with "guns, gays and God."

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Contributing: Associated Press