Democrats eyeing a novel target: VP

WASHINGTON -- Democrats running for the presidential nomination have consistently trained their sights on President Bush, but the candidates and party leaders have spotted another target they believe shows that the administration's policies are conceived in secrecy and skewed to the rich: Vice President Dick Cheney.

The low-key, tough-talking vice president is portrayed by Democrats as a sinister operator behind the curtain of the Bush administration, secretly meeting with oil executives to formulate energy policy and intimidating intelligence officials into bolstering the case for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Cheney's past ties to Halliburton, in particular, provide fodder for attack ads that are being considered for the fall campaign, say Democrats.

In two ways, those criticisms of Cheney represent novel political attacks on a vice president, political analysts say. Previous knocks on vice presidents suggested they were unfit to serve as president if something happened to the chief executive, but the criticism of Cheney instead hints that he is the real force behind the administration and a symbol of everything about it that is seen as wrong.

"He personifies a whole set of problems with the administration Democrats want to point out," said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic pollster who worked for Al Gore.

Republicans see a very different Cheney: a steady, conservative voice in dangerous times who has served in four administrations, including a stint as defense secretary for the president's father.

"You've got an extremely articulate, experienced person sitting in the vice president's chair offering advice and counsel," said Jim Willox, chairman of the Republican Party in Wyoming, which Cheney represented in the US House from 1977 through 1988.

The dueling images of Cheney are likely to surface in the general election campaign.

Last Thursday, Bush drew laughs at a fund-raiser in Connecticut with a familiar line: His mother -- wife of former vice president George H.W. Bush -- might disagree with her son's claim that the nation has had no finer vice president than Cheney.

During a Democratic debate in South Carolina the same day, former Vermont governor Howard Dean repeated his accusation that Cheney berated CIA officials in an effort to shape the intelligence the administration cited to justify going to war in Iraq. "It seems to me that the vice president of the United States therefore influenced the very reports that the president then used to decide to go to war and to ask Congress for permission to go to war," Dean said.

Cheney's office denies any such intervention, and says the vice president meets with intelligence officials as part of his job, not to influence their reports.

A Gallup poll conducted last fall found that a majority of Americans and 69 percent of Republicans want Bush to keep Cheney as his running mate. Cheney has said he plans to stay on and would only leave if that would be best for Bush.

"I hope he stays on the ticket," said T.J. Rooney, chairman of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania. "I wish he could stay on future Republican tickets."

Halliburton's decision to pay the government $6.3 million for overbilling charges on an Iraq contract has brought more complaints from Democrats and more reminders of the vice president's link to Halliburton, where he served as chief executive for five years until joining the Republican ticket in 2000.

Cheney has said that his former company is being treated unfairly, a complaint that draws scoffs from Democrats.

Tony Welch, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said one conceivable ad would mention Cheney's defense of Halliburton while also noting job losses during the administration. "How better to show the contrast of this administration," Welch said. "Three million jobs lost but Halliburton employees taking kickbacks from their no-bid contract."

The criticism of Cheney is unusual, said Allan J. Lichtman, a political science professor at American University in Washington, because "never before has someone accused the vice president of being the evil genius behind the president."

Joel K. Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University who has written extensively on vice presidential history, said the criticism of Cheney is different for another reason. "Here, the Democrats are associating Cheney with the major problems of the Bush administration," Goldstein said.

Much of the criticism of Cheney, Goldstein and Lichtman said, stems from the unprecedented influence the vice president wields within the administration.

That influence, Democrats say, serves big companies and powerful friends.

In addition to their suspicions about Cheney and Halliburton, Democrats have criticized the vice president for keeping secret the deliberations of his energy task force, an issue in a lawsuit before the Supreme Court.

Only weeks after the court decided to hear the case, Cheney went duck hunting with Justice Antonin Scalia.

Asked if the vice president believes the hunting trip was inappropriate, Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for Cheney, declined to comment on an engagement that was not on Cheney's official schedule.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut was one of two Democratic senators to write a letter to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist asking whether the court has procedures for spelling out when a justice should recuse himself from a case.

Rehnquist responded last week by saying there were no such procedures and chastising the senators for their "ill-considered" suggestion a duck hunting trip should be a reason for recusal.

The senators may have no room to press the issue further, but it adds to the image of Cheney as a man with powerful friends who does as he pleases when he pleases with little regard for political niceties.

"His record speaks for itself," Rooney said. "His interests and the people he advocates on behalf of are his select few friends. Everyone else seems to be in the way in Dick Cheney's world."

Wayne Washington can be reached at wwashington@globe.com.