WASHINGTON -- As the ashes settled after Tuesday night's late election returns, prominent Democrats like National Chairman Terry McAuliffe sifted through the embers for a spark of optimism in their defeat.
It was hard to find.
They consoled themselves with the fact that, at worst, the Republicans' new majorities in both the House and Senate would be narrow, reflecting the continuing existence of an electorate split down the middle.
As Al From, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, put it, "It was a 50-50 country before the election, and it's still a 50-50 country. I don't think this is an overwhelming mandate."
But a narrow presidential winner in 1960 named John Kennedy, when asked whether he had a mandate in the wake of his razor-thin victory over Richard Nixon, replied that a mandate is one vote more than the other guy.
While it no doubt is true that the Democrats retained enough strength to pose serious opposition to President Bush as he attempts to advance the legislative agenda they stymied during their brief control of the Senate, they should not kid themselves into believing they didn't sustain a major blow Tuesday.
The significance of the outcome goes far beyond the question of whether the Democrats are strong enough numerically to continue the gridlock on Capitol Hill that marked much of Mr. Bush's first two White House years.
Nor can it be dismissed by the rationale of leading Democrats that voters, still in post-9/11 shock, simply rallied behind the party of the wartime president.
What they must face is that enough congressional Democrats rallied around Mr. Bush, or at least voted with him on key issues such as his $1.35 trillion tax cut and his resolution authorizing war against Iraq, to make their party indistinguishable from the Republicans to the average voter.
While Democratic leaders did not hesitate to blame the massive tax slash for the disappearance of the huge federal surplus accumulated under Bill Clinton's watch, and label it as a giveaway to the rich, they lacked the courage to advocate its repeal.
And on the war resolution, they decided despite severe reservations about its wisdom and necessity to swallow it as a means of "getting it off the table" so the voters would focus on what the Democrats thought was their winning issue -- the state of the economy.
Having done that, however, they misjudged their ability to use falling stock prices, corporate greed and Mr. Bush's background as a member and ally of corporate America to cut into his remarkable personal popularity.
To top it all, they had no competitive leader to give effective voice to this already compromised message.
As a result, they find themselves facing dismal prospects for 2004, both in restoring a Democratic majority in Congress and in finding a dynamic presidential nominee and the coherent, persuasive agenda it will take to depose Mr. Bush two years from now.
To be sure, as the first President Bush learned in 1992 after emerging from the Persian Gulf war riding high in the polls and public esteem, a lot can happen in two years to change rosy outlook to gloom. In 1991 and 1992, however, he contributed to a worsening economic situation by seeming unconcerned, and a new charismatic Democrat named Bill Clinton seized the opportunity.
The second President Bush demonstrated in this election that he had no reluctance to put on the line the political capital that has come his way as a wartime president. He risked much of it in campaigning feverishly for GOP candidates, and it paid off handsomely. With both houses of Congress back in Republican hands, there is no reason to think he will not now press the advantage with vigor and conviction.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will need to disabuse themselves of any notion that the narrowness of GOP control means Mr. Bush doesn't have a "mandate" from the voters to do so. The Democrats' mandate now is to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington bureau. His column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.