The only thing the Democratic presidential candidates have to fear, on the eve of the 2008 election, is fear itself - the fear that the Republican candidates have already begun to sow in the minds of voters.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani put it bluntly in a speech in Manchester in April. If a Democrat becomes president, he suggested, America will face the risk of another terrorist attack.

With President Bush threatening to supplant Richard Nixon as the least popular president in modern times, Republicans have only a few cards to play, and none more powerful than the charge that Democrats are soft on defense and incapable of protecting the American people.

So far, Democratic presidential candidates have done a poor job of assuaging that fear. With occasional exceptions, they remain stuck in the past, arguing about old Iraq war votes and reciting the litany of Bush's blunderings. That may be enough to prevail in a primary election, but winning the White House will require more. Democratic candidates need to start explaining now, in detail, what they would do to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq and keep Americans safe at home.

Use former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's standard: Are we killing or capturing more terrorists than we're creating in Iraq? The answer appears to be no.

The effort to fight the war on terror with troops in Iraq has not succeeded, despite the absence of attacks on the home front and some signs of improvement in the field.

Instead, it is largely running true to the rules outlined in the recently revised U.S. Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which states: "An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of 50 more insurgents." The person most responsible for the manual is Gen. David Petraeus, who is in charge of what has been billed as a last-ditch effort to win in Iraq.

In Manchester on Saturday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson came closer than most of his Democratic rivals to offering what general election voters will need to hear: a detailed, sensible-sounding plan to defeat al-Qaida and reduce, if not eliminate, terrorist attacks.

Richardson would redirect military efforts away from Iraq and toward al-Qaida's presumed headquarters on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Among other measures, he called for improving the ability to detect nuclear and biological weapons, targeting homeland security efforts to the places most likely to be attacked and improving the government's diplomatic, intelligence-gathering and language capabilities. Richardson's promise to pull all U.S. ground forces out of Iraq in six months, however, is probably not the answer and certainly not the complete answer -- to the problems that war has caused.

The Democratic contenders have time to put together their plans to rebuild the military, protect America and fight terror far more successfully than the Bush administration has. But those plans must be concrete, well-founded, practical and capable of winning the support of existing allies and making new ones. And yes, the plans must be hard-nosed.

It's one thing to repeat "war on terror, war on terror" like an incantation that opens the door to the Oval Office. But voters have heard that one before. Next time around, they'll want specifics. The Democrats will either provide them or lose.