This time around, Democratic candidates believe they can frame the debate in the broader context of [Bush]'s economic and fiscal stewardship, and can convince voters that some tax increases are necessary to reverse the government's rising tide of red ink and revive job growth. Jim Jordan, who manages Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign, said Kerry (Mass.) does not relish making tax increases a fundamental piece of his platform, but the senator's attacks on Bush policies made taxes an inevitable issue.

Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) has taken a similar approach, calling for the top two tax brackets to be returned to their pre-Bush levels of 39.6 percent and 36 percent from the current 35 percent and 33 percent. He would scrap the 15 percent tax on dividends created this year, treating dividends once again as taxable income. And for people making more than $250,000 a year, Edwards would raise the capital gains rate up from the new 15 percent rate and even higher than the 20 percent rate Bush inherited, to 25 percent. He would also retain taxation on large inheritances, scuttling the law that would repeal the estate tax in 2010.

Most Democratic strategists acknowledged their concern over the issue. In 1992, [Bill Clinton] got away with his campaign promise to raise taxes on the rich, in part, because President George H.W. Bush had already raised taxes, demolishing his ability to attack his Democratic rival as a tax raiser, said a Democratic pollster working on one of the campaigns. This Bush will have no such liabilities. "No question Democrats have problems with taxes," he said. "No question people believe we are more likely to raise taxes than Republicans. And no question that when taxes are the central issue, Republicans win."