RALEIGH — Wars rarely re-elect presidents. More often than not, they appear to dis-elect presidents.

There are countless examples of this dynamic: the first George Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Winston Churchill (if you substitute prime minister for president). Even popular war leader FDR actually lost ground for his Democratic Party in Congress during World War II.

That’s one reason why Democratic partisans have gravitated to the anti-war candidacy of Howard Dean. Opposing the Iraqi action passionately, they are under the impression that the rest of the public feels that way — and that they are ready to give the junior Bush the heave-ho like so many other leaders who took their countries into war and then mishandled the aftermath.

But I think that these Democrats are on a fool’s errand. The Iraqi war was (and remains) surprisingly successful. The casualties have been militarily insignificant (though certainly tragic for the individuals and families involved). The post-war situation is chaotic, at least in and around Baghdad, but much of the country is essentially pacified and making steady, if slow, progress.

Perhaps I’m missing something since I was a supporter of the action, but there just doesn’t seem to be much of a political percentage in betting the Democrats’ 2004 prospects on voters punishing Bush for the Iraq War. More likely, they will continue to support Bush’s policy, as a strong 58 percent majority continued to do in a USA Today poll released this week. Some Republicans are wrong to think that a successful war guarantees the president’s re-election. History does clearly demonstrate that the public is more interested in the future than the past, and will toss out a successful wartime leader who does not deliver economically.

I think, in other words, that Bush’s real vulnerability is economic. Employment growth has been sluggish, though a measurement error may well explain why the current economic recovery has not appeared to result in new jobs (the federal government’s employer-based survey says employment has shrunk since the beginning of 2003 but its household survey, capturing the self-employed and those working for start-ups, shows an upswing during the same period). Naturally, I don’t think that the Democrats’ rap on Bush is justified — except when they criticize his proclivity to increase domestic spending too much, a criticism with which I strongly agree.

Oh, well, actually I haven’t heard Democrats making the criticism, but they should be.

As a political matter, the Dems’ best bet is to go after Bush on the economy. That’s why Dick Gephardt and John Edwards remain the best-situated candidates to take on Bush in the fall of 2004, while dovish Dean and wishy-washy John Kerry — and now neo-dovish Gen. Wesley Clark — represent the wrong way for the party to go. Guess we’ll see if the head will rule the heart.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.