It was illuminating yesterday to see the reactions of some of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination to the Bush administration’s announcement that it would remove steel tariffs imposed last year. President Bush and his advisers, of course, knew that the imposition of these tariffs was monstrously bad economic policy. Tariffs — sold in this case as a measure to give the steel industry “breathing space” — amount to little more than a tax on average Americans to protect jobs in dying industries.

In return for keeping inefficient American steel companies afloat, the tariffs present a hidden tax to everyone who is not a steel worker. The current steel tariffs, for example, amount to roughly a $100 tax on every new American car. Mr. Bush, however, did what he felt he needed to do at the time to get along. Steelworkers could make or break Mr. Bush’s re-election; they are important in Pennsylvania and Washington, states he lost narrowly, and Ohio, West Virginia, and Florida, which he won narrowly.

The World Trade Organization and its member states, however, threatened a trade war with America over the tariffs, which has given the Bush administration the breathing room it needs politically to turn around on the controversial issue. Some of the Democrats, however, are more interested in pandering to union interests than promoting what is almost universally accepted as sound economic policy: free trade. Rep. Richard Gephardt said that Mr. Bush’s action demonstrated a “callous disregard for the workers and the communities whose jobs and livelihoods have been decimated by unfair competition.” General Clark said that “President Bush still has no strategy to help the 2.6 million manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs. We need a real strategy to help our manufacturing communities.” Governor Dean said that “Despite what President Bush may claim, the steel industry needs additional breathing room to get back on its feet.” Senator Kerry has also taken the protectionist line on this issue.

The only major candidate with anything sensible to say about the Bush announcement was Senator Lieberman.”He put politics first when he imposed the tariffs, and now he’s been forced to back flip when confronted by life in the real world,” he said. It’s not the first time Mr. Lieberman has talked economic sense to the other, more extreme candidates in the field. When Dr. Dean vowed last month to re-regulate the American economy, Mr. Lieberman jumped to declare: “Howard Dean would usher in a new era of big government with his re-regulation proposal. He would give us a treacherous trifecta of policies that turn back the economic clock: new trade barriers, a larger tax burden on our middle class, and now bigger bureaucracy.”

It is truly encouraging to see at least one candidate in the Democratic field picking up the mantle of Clintonian centrism. It’s only a shame for the Democrats that Mr. Lieberman isn’t the front-runner.