Especially since they seem to go so closely intertwined in voters' minds. In the latest Democracy Corps poll, the top three economic problems rated "very serious" by voters were rising health care costs (53 percent), employers cutting back contributions for employees' health insurance and pensions (38 percent) and job losses to China and India (37 percent).

And in another question asking voters which two of a list of seven economic problems qualified as "major long-term" problems, the top two were "jobs being outsourced overseas" (selected by 43 percent of voters) and "health care costs rising every year" (selected by 35 percent).

But that would be wrong. Sure these two issues are both (a) highly salient and (b) areas of clear Democratic advantage. Beating Bush, however, will require a more wide-ranging approach that takes a few more risks.

Start with Iraq and the national security issue. As I mentioned the other day, Bush currently leads Kerry on who could handle the situation in Iraq better (53-37). And he leads Kerry by even more on handling terrorism and homeland security (56-35). It's probably not stretching things too much to say that if Kerry can cut these margins in half, he'll win the election.

The raw material for cutting those margins is certainly there. The Democracy Corps poll shows about half the public saying Bush doesn't have good plans for Iraq, that he has a go-it-alone policy that creates a lot of uncertainty in the world, that America's security depends on building strong ties with other nations, that Bush misled the country about reasons about reasons to go to war in Iraq and that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost of US lives and dollars. And this survey was conducted before this weeks intense wave of bad publicity for the administration from the testimony and public statements of Richard Clarke.

A great time to push on the Iraq mess and the president's credibility, right? But, as Matthew Yglesias reports on Tapped today:

Last night I saw Terry McAuliffe speaking to a Democratic Party MeetUp at Lucky Bar here in Washington. He was, as one would expect, highly critical of George W. Bush's leadership. He managed, however, not to mention the war on terror at all in the course of his presentation, focusing instead on jobs, health care, and education. This was a bad strategy when it was first unveiled for the 2002 midterms; it's been a bad strategy ever since, and it's an absolutely awful strategy for this week.

The kind of approach exemplified by McAuliffe's talk has got to go. But let me commend him for at least mentioning education. That issue's part of what I call the "E3" issue set (education, the environment and energy) that needs to get a more prominent role in the campaign.

Take education. Bush is hugely vulnerable on this issue because of the many problems with the No Child Left Behind Act and the general sense that education is getting shortchanged in the current fiscal environment. And this is an important issue to voters (if not quite as important as the economy and health care).

But in the recent Newsweek poll, Kerry only has a 3 point lead over Bush on who can best handle the issue. That should be larger.

As for the environment and energy, these are issues with lower salience, but are also issues where Bush is generally perceived as doing a lousy job. Bush's terrible ratings on the environment have been documented in poll after poll and now Gallup has released some data showing the public's view of his performance on the energy issue is also bleak.

According to these data, Bush's rating on energy was highest right after he was elected, in March, 2001, when 58 percent said he was doing a good job on this issue. From then on, it declined steadily every time Gallup took a reading, falling to 54 percent in April of that year, then to 46 percent in March, 2002 (one area where his post-9/11 approval spike apparently never kicked in), then to 39 percent in March, 2003 and finally to 34 percent this month.

So there's a great deal of opportunity on the E3 issues, if Democrats care to take it. And a strong program in these areas--building a 21st century P-14 school system (preschool through 2 years of college), energy independence and safeguarding the environment--would go a long way toward giving Kerry's domestic approach the optimistic, forward-looking character it needs. That would help reach the swing voters Kerry needs to win, as well as mobilize the young voters that are already moving in his direction (see yesterday's post).