Sunday, 29 April 2007 - 8:48 AM PDT

The Bush administration has demonstrated an appalling incompetence in handling the machinery of government. It started a war under false pretenses, produced a fragmented economy, revealed contemptible callousness after Hurricane Katrina and has shown a shocking disrespect for the Bill of Rights and the balance of powers that are the heart and soul of our Constitution.

The administration’s failures were so plentiful and so blatant that all the Democrats needed to do to win control of Congress in the 2006 elections was to recount them loudly.

The elections in 2008 will be a different matter. The burden of proof will be on the Democrats. To hold on to control of Congress — and win the presidency — Democratic candidates must detail what they propose to do and how they propose to get it done, including how to pay for it. How do we deal with our failing public schools, the looming insolvency of Social Security, the escalating costs of healthcare? Can we reverse our huge trade and budget deficits? What must we do to halt global warming? What do we do about 12 million undocumented workers?

How will we know when it is safe to bring most of our troops back from Iraq? Who will stay behind and for what purpose? Who will rebuild Iraq, and who will pay for the rebuilding? And how will we continue to fight the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and beyond? As for Iran, should we increase sanctions, or negotiate, or seriously consider bombing?

It’s hard to recall another time when we had so many vital issues before us. That makes it more regrettable that the leading Democratic presidential candidates are so far avoiding specifics.

The proliferation of candidates — eight declared Democrats so far — and the extraordinarily early primary season threaten to give us another primary campaign of sound bites, elusive responses and negativism. Those leading the pack seem reluctant to engage in any meaningful debate — or say anything that might risk their standing in the polls.

Candidates are afraid of making a mistake or advocating a position that they believe is correct and important but that might prove politically problematic — like New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s recent stance against illegal guns. Instead, they take shelter in the safest political positions. They utter benign generalities about the more controversial questions, leaving those questions to be dealt with until after the election.

There is still plenty of time to have a more substantive campaign. We can have real debates with ample time for consideration of the questions and presentation of answers as well as more thorough and objective interviews and more on-the-record statements addressing the hard questions, such as, “How will you pay for that program?”

Intelligent attempts to illuminate the issues and propose solutions should replace the 90-second answers allowed during many recent presidential debates, the distortive 28-second commercials, the fierce diatribes, the coyness and the simplification we have seen so often in the past.

The electorate must be able to base its vote on candidates’ actual proposed solutions. Otherwise, a victory at the polls won’t constitute the mandate the next president needs to leverage action out of Congress.

A campaign that reveals all that voters should know — or at least most of it — would be novel, but we have never needed it more. Voters should demand it loudly and insistently.

Some years ago, I said in a speech that politicians “campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose.” In fact, if our candidates win based on their poetry rather than good, hard specifics, they may wind up governing in vain.

Mario M. Cuomo was governor of New York from 1983 to 1995.

© 2007 The Los Angeles Times