WASHINGTON (By Peter Wallsten and Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times) August 8, 2007 — Democrats are not winning the battle to force Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales from office, stymied by a legal system that gives the Bush administration wide discretion to block investigations of itself. And they are not getting the White House witnesses or records they have demanded in recent weeks.

But many Democrats are fine with that.

While their efforts may prove fruitless in investigating the White House, the attempts might help keep President Bush and his administration the center of attention in next year's elections, even as the Republican Party chooses a new standard-bearer and tries to move on.

With Congress beginning a monthlong summer recess -- and Gonzales still entrenched at the Justice Department -- focus is turning to the candidates and their positions on issues such as his two-year tenure. Lawmakers also are getting the opportunity to see what constituents make of his performance.

Even if Gonzales remains in his post until Bush leaves office, strategists hope his continued presence damages GOP candidates everywhere.

"This becomes a piece of the race," said David Bonior, a former congressman who is managing John Edwards's Democratic presidential campaign. By highlighting Bush's allegiance to Gonzales, Democrats hope to make a point about how a Democratic administration would be different, drawing "the contrast of what we have and what we could have," Bonior said.

Gonzales has come under fire for giving shifting explanations about his role in the firing of eight US attorneys and for his testimony about an electronic surveillance program that Bush launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In that case, his statements have appeared to contradict testimony from the FBI director.

Democrats are eyeing potential gains from the controversy in at least one key battleground state, New Mexico, home to one of the US attorneys whose firings last year sparked the latest rounds of congressional inquiries.

The party recently aired a radio ad linking a vulnerable Republican, Representative Heather Wilson, to the controversy.

And one of the sponsors of a new resolution pushing for Gonzales's impeachment, Representative Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, is considering a run for the seat held by Senator Pete Domenici, a Republican who Democrats have said helped engineer the prosecutor's firing.

In the Democratic presidential primary, the Edwards camp has seized on the controversy most directly, distributing a mass fund-raising appeal last week describing the attorney general as "the man who helped enable torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and illegal spying on Americans." The e-mail also sought 25,000 names for an anti-Gonzales petition that would be delivered to his office with an oversized copy of the Constitution.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are growing increasingly more aggressive.

Four senators recently called for a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales for possible perjury in his testimony before Congress on the fired US attorneys and on Bush's electronic surveillance program. Some House members are calling for Gonzales's impeachment.

The House Judiciary Committee has recommended that the Justice Department bring contempt charges against two senior White House aides -- former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and current chief of staff Joshua Bolten -- who have refused to testify or produce documents about the prosecutors' firings. Democrats say they want to find out who ordered the firings and why.

Karl Rove, the president's top adviser, last week refused to honor a subpoena to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his involvement in the firings.

But even left-leaning scholars say the Democrats are unlikely to succeed on the legal front.

For instance, the Justice Department has put Congress on notice that it will not bring charges if the full House refers contempt proceedings to it against Miers and Bolten. Legal analysts say the federal law making contempt of Congress a crime is unenforceable against executive branch officials who, at the behest of the president, invoke executive privilege in refusing to testify.

The House is considering bringing a civil action in federal court against the officials, but legal analysts believe that a court would not entertain such a suit without a specific statute authorizing it.

A third option involves a proceeding known as inherent contempt, in which the House would hold a mini-trial much along the lines of an impeachment proceeding. The last time that was tried: 1935.

Administration officials have shown no signs of backing down in their defense of Gonzales.

White House press secretary Tony Snow dismissed last week the Democrats' intensifying assaults as a "race to be most toxic" and said they are "designed to turn up the temperature rather than to turn on the light."

Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking on CNN's "Larry King Live," accused Democrats of conducting "a bit of a witch hunt on Capitol Hill, as they keep rolling over rocks hoping they can find something."

But Democrats say the controversy plays directly into their hands as they attempt to frame 2008, like their takeover of Congress last year, as a "change election." When voters go to the polls next year, Democrats want them to be thinking about Bush, even though he is not on the ballot.

Jim Jordan, an adviser to the Democratic presidential campaign of Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, said the historic correlation is "almost absolute" between the ratings of an outgoing president and the ability of his party's next presidential nominee to win the general election.