CONGRESS' RECORD MAY PROVE COSTLY.

Byline: Adam Clymer The New York Times

After six weeks of trying to run for president from the well of the Senate, Bob Dole finally conceded Wednesday that his strategy was not working.

But while he can take himself out of Congress and get a new backdrop for his speeches, this Congress inevitably will remain a big part of the Dole candidacy. He cannot escape being judged to some degree on the record it compiles and by its personality even after he goes.

It is uncertain who will succeed Dole. There is likely to be a contested vote for the leader's job, but just who wins will not matter much in the short run. Whoever it is will have less skill as a deal maker, but in recent months Dole has not cut as many deals as he used to because he has almost lost his balance leaning to the right to please the conservatives.

One conservative, Rep. Robert Dornan of California, speaking of the most likely successor, said Wednesday that ``because of Trent Lott, everybody thinks that it will get more conservative, but Bob Dole votes almost as conservatively as Trent.''

In any case, his resignation will not make Democrats stop running television commercials referring to ``DoleGingrich.''

Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the Democrats know, remains much less popular than Dole. And while Gingrich has managed to keep largely off television screens for a few weeks, that probably cannot last.

It's one thing for the speaker of the House to defer to his party's choice for the White House and Gingrich said Wednesday, ``The new Senate leader will join me in being a junior partner to the presidential nominee.''

But no one who enjoys the sight of a microphone the way Gingrich does can take a back seat to Lott, Don Nickles, Thad Cochran, Pete Domenici or whoever succeeds Dole as majority leader. And Gingrich in the spotlight is not good politics for the Republican Party.

This Congress' record is a fair campaign issue, for or against Dole. And it is mostly written already - largely in veto messages.

Republicans argue that they should get credit for what they tried to enact, and President Clinton and the Democrats should be blamed for failures. So far, however, the public blames the Republicans - just as it blamed the Democrats for failure when they controlled Congress in 1994.

But Dole, who has voted for everything that passed and much that did not, may be able to make the case for credit and blame more clearly than any Democrat did in the scattered terrain of the 1994 election.

The record of laws enacted is not likely to change much between now and Election Day, and even the total number of vetoes may not get much higher if Senate Democrats filibuster to spare Clinton that role.

But there are two measures that may be strikingly affected by Dole's departure. One is the Kennedy-Kassebaum health insurance bill, written to make insurance coverage portable from job to job.

Although it passed 100-0 in the Senate, it has been hung up for three weeks since Dole sought to get conferees to attach a medical savings account beloved by House Republicans but rejected by the Senate.

Only Dole has the authority to back down to a compromise, something he has frequently told Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts that he wants.

Dole told Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and other Kansans the same thing Wednesday, saying he wanted to see the bill passed before he left. It may have to be. Without him the bill may be dead, because none of his potential successors are as inclined to compromise on health insurance as he is.

The other issue that his departure may affect is the one that has dogged him and symbolized the impossibility of his dual role since March - the minimum wage.

The realities of Capitol Hill enabled Democrats to keep him from running, as he expected, as the man who could get things done on big issues that mattered to ordinary Americans.

Instead, he was coming across as the man who could not get the Senate out of gridlock. He was not confronting Bill Clinton - he was scrapping with Tom Daschle and Kennedy.

In fact, his dual role as candidate-leader made Daschle's job as Democratic leader easier by unifying the Democrats as they filibustered to force a vote to raise the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour, from $4.25.

Dole moved slowly on the issue, but ultimately wanted to agree with the Democrats and get it out of the way, only to be stopped by Democrats demanding more and by House Republicans balking.

A few days ago he walked the gantlet of reporters between the Senate chamber and his office, hearing question after question on that single issue. He muttered to a friend, ``I'm so sick of the minimum wage, I can't stand it.''