Dems: time to pack it in.

POLITICAL junkies, this should be your time. Next week, the Iowa caucuses kick off a year f primaries, conventions and the fall campaign season.

But before it even gets started, Election 2004 is shaping up to be a bust because we all know--even if we're not saying so out loud--that

George W. Bush has this one locked up.

Of course, anything is possible--scandals, terrorism, the economy. It's still 10 months until the color-coded electoral maps go up at network newsrooms and in the universe of politics, that's several lifetimes.

But barring calamity, Bush is in. All the Democratic debates, all the position papers, all the media coverage--it's pointless prologue to a re-election that's as inevitable as anything can be these days.

C'mon, Joe Lieberman, do you really think you have the remotest chance of being the next president? Same with Kerry and Gephardt. It's not simply that they're Washington insiders whom voters tend not to trust. They're just boring, uninspired career pols who should be ashamed that they're wasting the hopes--not to mention bank accounts--of the party faithful.

Yes, Howard Dean is intriguing, on paper. He grabbed onto Iraq as a kind of Bush referendum, attracted a McGovern-esque band of young followers and dialed into the Internet as an effective political tool. But have you actually heard the guy speak? Aside from his tantrums about the president, some of them justified, his policy papers are a mishmash of ideas, with little coherent summation of why we should elect him. The other day he was yapping about North Korea and how his position differs from that of Bush. While he might have made some good points, the reality is that no one cares about North Korea--not enough, anyway, to sway a presidential vote.

Which is one of the many reasons why so many Democrats have resisted anointing the former Vermont governor--and why Wesley Clark seems to be gaining steam in New Hampshire (he's skipping Iowa). The latest polls show him within four percentage points of Dean and even if he loses, a strong second-place showing will likely be the morning-after headline. Unfortunately for the Democrats, that raises another question: Who the heck is Wesley Clark and why should anyone vote for him?

The nominating numbers will be sorted out in due course, at which point all the Democrats will have to worry about is Bush's $130 million war chest (with millions more to come), not to mention a grass-roots organization that is frighteningly efficient and calculating.

But most of all, the Democrats will lose because there is no reason for them to win. Much of this involves the economy thawing out (even if new jobs remain scarce), but there are also the lingering concerns about terrorism. This is a scary, complicated world and even some of my liberal friends were quietly admitting after 9/11 that they were glad the tough-guy Republicans had been running the show. If, God forbid, there were another attack, whom would you rather have as president: some neophyte learning on the job or the roughhouse gang unafraid to punch a few noses if necessary?

One other problem: George W. Bush comes off as a lot more likeable than any other the Democrats, and don't underestimate that advantage.

Like I said, it's hopeless for the Democrats. Might as well save everybody lots of campaign money and frequent flier miles by calling off this race. Declare Bush the winner and regroup for another day. It might be unorthodox but at least this way the Democrats avoid a blowout of Dukakis-like proportions come November.

Mark Lacter is editor of the Business Journal