With the political fiasco over the port sale, a vice president who can’t shoot straight, several lobbying scandals, the many failures of the Bush administration, and the president’s low approval ratings, Democrats may be tempted to think they are on the upswing. They are making a serious mistake, however, if they believe that Republican negatives alone will carry them to power. Unless the Democrats begin to provide a positive vision for America, they will continue to be at serious risk of being marginalized as a party of small ideas who may be effective critics, but lack the stuff of leadership. Meanwhile, whatever his current difficulties, the president continues to be viewed by many as a strong leader capable of being a steward of our country’s security.

To be sure, the president’s attempt to create this self-portrait is deeply flawed. In many ways he has been a poor war leader whose failings risk creating the kind of domestic dissension and backlash that could undermine the war on terror. First, rather than follow the example of Franklin Roosevelt, who with the onset of World War II made winning the war a bipartisan national enterprise by appointing Republicans to key positions and eloquently articulating the need for shared sacrifice to win the war, President Bush did the opposite.

No Democrats were brought into his national security inner circle; instead, in 2002 and 2004, the President and his allies tried to use national security in the most blatantly partisan way – remember, for example, the 2002 election attacks on the patriotism of the disabled war veteran Senator Cleland. Rather than stress the need for sacrifice, we have seen the administration proceed with a tax-cut policy that pretends we are not at war and pays constantly increasing war costs by ever increasing borrowing. When it came to Iraq, the administration wrongly suggested that we could fight the war on the cheap, both in terms of personnel and money.

Even more fundamentally, the president has failed to understand the importance, in a democracy, and particularly in America, of a broad consensus that we are morally in the right as we commit our human and financial treasure in the war on terror. Surely we all believed that in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Among the reasons this consensus has been compromised are the controversy over commencing the war in Iraq when we did, the all too often arrogant unilateralism that has squandered so much international good will, and the sense that the president feels unbound to abide by statutory restrictions on his authority.

The most dramatic cause of this erosion of our moral position, however, was the president’s lack of meaningful response to what occurred at Abu Ghraib. There was one clear way to demonstrate to the Muslim world, to the world at large, and, most importantly, to the American people that America did not sanction this kind of wanton and reckless brutality in the treatment of prisoners. President Bush would have done well to remove Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Indeed, his removal also would have been fully justified by his mishandling of postwar planning, his dissembling on war costs, and his sending too many troops to war with inadequate armor. The president chose instead to endorse his Secretary of Defense’s leadership.

Yet, despite these failings and more, Democrats will not regain power unless they earn it by offering voters a sense that they can provide alternatives that are both real and reflective of the true crises confronting the country.

What does this mean in practice? With regard to the dispute over the interception of international communications with American persons while bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, it means recognizing that we are in a dangerous war where the current law simply is not adequate. Thus, rather than just attacking the president over his wrongful assertion of a power to ignore existing law – a law criminalizing interceptions not authorized by the statute – the Democrats should propose to fix the law so that it works in dealing with the terrorist threat.

For example, the “probable cause” standard could be changed to a “reasonable suspicion” standard and a longer period than the current 72 hours could be allowed for emergency interceptions. Indeed, FISA itself recognizes that the onset of war might require different standards by allowing warrantless interceptions for 15 days after a declaration of war to provide time for emergency congressional action, an opportunity to adapt the law to current necessities that the president chose to ignore. By just being critics on this, and similar issues, however, the Democrats allow themselves to be cast as insensitive to the dangers of terrorism and inadequate stewards of the nation’s security.

If they are to achieve electoral success, the Democrats also need to present a positive domestic agenda providing real solutions to real problems. One potentially wasted opportunity involves energy policy where, however belated and incomplete, the president’s State of the Union proposals have cast him as the leader on this core issue, with the Democrats again as mere followers.

While Democrats can, and should, still include an energy program, including a greater focus on conservation, in their affirmative agenda, they also need to address other key issues. For example, for many politicians the healthcare reform failure of 1994 has created its own post-Vietnam syndrome, leading to a hesitation to act. Yet in many ways 2006 is like 1990, when healthcare was a dominant Democratic issue. Escalating costs are creating a growing and dangerous long-term drag on the economy, especially through the threat healthcare expenses pose to the General Motors and Fords of America. With a huge uninsured population and companies increasingly passing their higher costs on to their employees, fears about health care also are a source of insecurity for many Americans.

Health care, however many pitfalls may exist, simply is an issue which must be addressed with concrete pragmatic proposals that focus not on ideology but on getting the job done. Democrats similarly need to resume the mantle of leadership on many other issues – advocating true tax reform by eliminating all forms of tax shelters, being relentless advocates for the fairness of progressivity in the tax system, pushing for lobbying and other “clean government” reforms, proposing a meaningful environmental policy, identifying a realistic alternative approach to social security, and more. If the Democrats want to lead this country, they have to start acting like leaders.

Mr. Davis was assistant secretary of the Treasury for enforcement and operations in the Carter administration, currently practices law in New York.