The Comeback Challenge.(Democratic Party)

AS THEY LEARN TO SURVIVE IN A POLITICAL SIBERIA, DEMOCRATS SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF ISSUES.

At a recent thank-you party for campaign contributors hosted by former Vice President Al Gore, one of his friends took a moment to vent his frustrations. "Al, I understand what you're doing," he said, "but you know there's no leadership. None." Gore, the man who surpassed George W. Bush in the popular vote--who, in fact, got more votes than anyone since Ronald Reagan--understood what his friend was telling him: Democrats have no single leader or spokesperson, just a chorus of voices; they have no persuasive agenda, just reactive tactics. And the party's best-known flagwavers, Bill Clinton and Gore, have both decided to step away from the action. "I know it," was all Gore would say, as another well-wisher pressed toward him.

There are a lot of unhappy Democrats out there, including some toiling away on Capitol Hill. Despite all the chirpy pronouncements about taking some of the air out of President Bush's proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut, and the party's cries of "Eureka!" as it charged the Republican Administration with being more sympathetic to domestic oil and gas producers than to Alaskan caribou, Democrats are having a seriously hard time as the out-of-power party. Life was more fun before Bush and his West Texas sensibilities moved in.

"It's exceedingly possible that if they keep building a brick road in front of [Bush], he'll walk down it and look like a leader," complained a former Clinton White House official about the Democrats' performance. "They are just moving the deck chairs around the deck. It's pitiful. There's no leadership."

On a slightly more charitable note, other Democrats are eager to go on the record as lauding what they say is the effective direction of House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., and Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D. Although not exactly household names, the two party leaders are credited with picking up the pieces after Bush's inauguration. They know their caucuses, they have formulated legislative and political strategies, and they are figuring out how to insert Democrats into daily news coverage of Washington. But with Republicans holding the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate--and 29 governorships--Democrats are struggling. Only in the Senate, where Democrats have half the votes, is the party's influence really felt.

And there is no shortage of complaining. About Bush. About a disengaged public. About a party in retreat. About a strategy too sweet to be sharp. About a tired, hold-over agenda. About media gone soft on Republicans, after being too tough on Clinton. About the outcome of Election 2000, and fears for Election 2002.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry R. McAuliffe, who assumed his post on February 3 and will have traveled to 25 states by the end of June, hears all the naysaying from the party faithful. "I give them all the red meat they want," he said of his speeches and the DNC's recent first-100-days ad campaign. "The base is energized, but they would like to see more fighting from others going on."

The arc of the Democrats' performance since January 20 has been a wobbly one, proving only that as legislators, as politicians, and as communicators, these lawmakers are still learning what it means to survive in a political Siberia they have not experienced since Dwight Eisenhower was President. There is no definitive Democratic scorecard--yet. But there are plenty of assessments.

"We are not doing too well," said New York Democrat Charles B. Rangel, the ranking minority member on the House Ways and Means Committee. "There is a sense of frustration." On Bush's tax-cut framework, trimmed slightly by Democrats to $1.3.5 trillion, and on Bush's spending proposals, nudged upward by lawmakers of both parties, Rangel would like to be a little bolder. He thinks the message should be that Bush's numbers do not add up without serious trade-offs and a return to deficit spending. "No one is better than Gephardt and Daschle, but Bush is better than Ronald Reagan ever was," Rangel explained. "Reagan knew that he was acting.... Bush keeps talking about more tax cuts, but what this really deals with is reducing federal spending by any means possible."

Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is similarly troubled. "We are working, but it's very hard. Most new Presidents get a holiday period.... Bush has had a press holiday, and it's hard to penetrate that," he said. "The public is tired of partisanship and wants to give the President the benefit of the doubt."

It is not a coincidence that Rangel and Frost are willing to put their gripes on the record. Because House Republicans enjoy a slim, but decisive, five-seat majority, that chamber is far less important for Democrats this year than the Senate, where power is deadlocked. "Legislatively, the House is irrelevant," said a House Democratic aide. "Our members are getting a lot of complaints from constituents who ask: `Where are the Democratic proposals?'"

`WE'RE BEING TOO NICE'

Democrats in both the House and the Senate complain about how tough it is to counter the volume of Bush's White House megaphone. Such is the plight of the minority party. But, in this case, part of the frustration is over Gephardt's and Daschle's…