Can a Democrat steal President Bush’s bullhorn? This could be a moment of truth for both the White House and all of Bush’s would-be successors. For hurricane politics, the administration is desperately struggling to recreate the image of Bush’s tough-talking stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center three days after Sept. 11, when he memorably vowed to go after the terrorists responsible.

But in the aftermath of Katrina, it’s the early Democratic aspirants — emboldened by the president’s disastrous poll numbers — who are closer to finding their voice, needling Bush for a bungled disaster response and drawing far-reaching parallels to his administration’s policies on the poor.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is angling for a second presidential nomination, blasted the president’s Gulf Coast recovery plan as part of the same free-market policies that kept the poor in poverty, saying Bush “can’t think of anything to offer the Gulf Coast but the hair of the dog that bit them.” Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York’s junior senator, wasted no time calling for an independent investigation of what went wrong, and she was not shy about pointedly praising her husband’s stewardship of emergency management while in the White House.

Still, until Bush was on the ropes, I never saw any evidence of leading Democrats taking charge of hurricane politics, even as a rhetorical matter. So you have to wonder if they would have done anything different that would have saved lives or made things better.

When Florida was ravaged by hurricanes during the 2004 campaign, Kerry annoyed many in his party by waiting several days to go to that all-important swing state — out of fear that he would look like an opportunist. Despite his current bluster that Bush was slow to react to Katrina, there’s little in Kerry’s record as senator or campaigner to suggest he would have acted faster in the first days after the storm.

If Kerry hemmed and hawed over hurricane politics in the same way he dawdled in response to the infamous “swift boat” veterans who attacked his military record, it’s hard to imagine New Orleans being better off with him in charge. Sure, the deadly consequences of a monster storm do not compare to a petty political hit job in the heat of a campaign. But Kerry seldom shows any instinct for immediate action in a crisis, no matter how high the stakes are.

One of Kerry’s advisers once described to me the frustration those around him felt when pressing for a command decision. He is such a vacillator that the savviest among his inner circle would wait to give an opinion last, because often that was the advice he ended up taking.

Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, is best positioned among the Democratic 2008 hopefuls to raise the poverty question in the Katrina debate. It was a signature issue for him in the 2004 presidential campaign, although few beyond the news media took notice of it. Since relinquishing his Senate seat and slipping from the national stage, Edwards founded a think tank aimed at reducing poverty and has been traveling the country — well before Katrina — hitting this theme.

Edwards’ credibility on poverty concerns catapulted him back into television studios following the storm. The Charlotte Observer, the biggest newspaper in Edwards’ home state of North Carolina, wrote last week that “the hurricane has blown Edwards back into the race for the White House.” And a recent speech on the lessons of Katrina for helping the poor was widely covered, rivaling the attention paid to a Kerry speech on the same day.

Bush’s decision to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act — the law requiring federal contractors to pay an area’s prevailing wage — gave Edwards an opening that other Democrats will surely seize. “When the only shot many people have is a good job rebuilding New Orleans, the president intervened to suspend prevailing wage laws so his contractor friends can cut wages for a hard day's work,” he said.

As will happen on many fronts if Clinton runs for president, rival Democrats have nothing to match her secret weapon: her husband. Bill Clinton has been out front on Katrina politics, thanks to Bush naming him and former President George Bush to head a fundraising drive. While the senator underscores positive comparisons to her husband’s intense focus as president on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he showcases his knack for empathy — and for articulating just the right political message.

While at first reserved about his successor’s post-hurricane politics, Bill Clinton finally pounced Sep. 18 on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” saying, “We’re borrowing the money to pay for Katrina, pay for Iraq, and pay for . . . tax cuts, and I don’t approve of that.”

If Democrats stick to big-message points like that — and avoid the blame-game whining — they might find their Katrina voice before the president does.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for MSNBC, CNBC and “The Early Show” on CBS. He is the author of “Attack The Messenger: How Politicians Turn You Against the Media.”