The Democratic Leadership Council warns that liberal activists in the Democratic party may end up picking such a liberal candidate in the Democratic primaries that the Dems might go down in 2004 like they did with McGovern and Mondale.

The DLC, which helped elect Bill Clinton to the presidency, singled out liberal, antiwar candidate Howard Dean of Vermont for what it called a message of weakness on national security and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri for his universal health care plan, which the DLC derided as a liberal, big-government proposal that was doomed to fail.

In a five-page memo to party leaders, DLC founder Al From and its president, Bruce Reed, took Mr. Dean to task for appealing to the antiwar, liberal activist wing of the party that they said was "defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home."

"That's the [McGovern-Mondale] wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one," they said.

At the same time, Mr. Clinton urged all the Democratic presidential candidates to stop their intraparty squabbling and focus their attacks on Mr. Bush, principally on his handling of the economy, where he is weakest in the polls.