Leaderless Democrats. (Commentary).

IF the Democratic Party had a "Corp." or an Inc. at the end of its name, there would be hell to pay.

Stunned by last week's election results, shareholders would be demanding change. They had invested countless millions in search of a decent return but on Wednesday morning it was the smiling Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott--soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader--who was preparing to lead a GOP juggernaut over the next two years. And with President Bush a shoo-in for re-election, at this point anyway, we're really talking six years.

That's a lot of tax cut legislation, scores of federal judges, one or two Supreme Court justices, a probable invasion of Iraq and God knows what mayhem on the terrorist front to deal with. Too much stuff, in other words, to be left in the hands of a single party, no matter which one.

You can already hear the Democratic shareholders demanding change at the top. They want restructuring, a new executive team, a different marketing strategy. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who knows a thing or two about political management, told The New York Times, "In any campaign you first maximize your own strength, and then you add to it. We've been doing just the reverse.

The trouble is that the Democrats do a very good job of hand wringing and a very bad job of getting at the core of their troubles. Rep. Richard Gephardt, the House minority leader who is being blamed for last week's meltdown, quickly resigned from his leadership role, quite appropriately so. But Gephardt's resignation prompted immediate speculation that he now intends to run for president in 2004, a prospect that will prompt many to dust off their Al Gore buttons. When will these guys realize that failure in one leadership role doesn't merit promotion to a bigger one?

What happened last week is really just a continuation of Gore's 2000 blunder-fest--you know, the one that had the vice president as the presumptive favorite until his own ineptitude as a candidate, along with arguably the worst campaign organization in memory, created an unexpected opportunity for the GOP. In the end, we ended up choosing between the surly appliance manager and the genial tire manager.

Even after their excruciating post-election defeat, Democrats figured that Bush would self-destruct. But that hasn't happened--in part because Americans have come to recognize that besides his geniality, this president is quite comfortable in his own skin and we like that in our leaders. He's also charming and self-deprecating--we like that too. All it took was a couple of weeks of campaigning in the nation's midsection, where the election was really centered, for him to seal the deal.

It's likely to happen again and again. The Democrats are leaderless and directionless. While the prospect of California liberal Nancy Pelosi jockeying for Gephardt's spot will prompt party centrists to choke on their rubber chickens, perhaps it will serve as a wakeup call to shake up the management ranks. Perhaps it will happen with the likes of Rod Blagojevich, the new governor of Illinois, or Kathleen Sebelius, the new governor of Kansas (where, by the way, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats seven-to-four).

However the Democrats turn this wreck around, you can be sure it won't be under the leadership of Gephardt, Gore, Tom Daschle--or Gray Davis, for that matter. Too bad for them, and for the country at large, that it could take years to have it all play out.