WASHINGTON -- It didn't take long after their election-night setback for the Democrats to resurrect their internal debate over the direction of their party.

The immediate resignation of Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri as House Democratic Leader opened the door to a fight for his job between his chief deputy, liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, and centrist Rep. Martin Frost of Texas. When Ms. Pelosi quickly garnered heavy support, Mr. Frost dropped out, but Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, a 32-year-old third-termer, jumped in as the moderate alternative.

Ms. Pelosi most recently demonstrated, in her outspoken opposition to President Bush's war resolution against Iraq, that she represents the segment of the party that favors confrontation with Mr. Bush over accommodation with him.

As Ms. Pelosi has acknowledged, this leadership fight is not so much about ideology as about what it will take to make the Democrats winners again. It's an argument that Bill Clinton as a presidential candidate thought he had resolved in 1992 and reinforced in 1996 as he fashioned himself and the party as centrist "New Democrats."

In Mr. Clinton's first term, however, his ham-handed advocacy of gays in the military and universal health care enabled Republicans led by Rep. Newt Gingrich to slap the old "liberal" label on the Democrats. The result was the 1994 "Gingrich Revolution" that wrested House control from them and seemed to imperil Mr. Clinton's re-election in 1996.

But because Mr. Gingrich arrogantly overplayed his hand thereafter, Mr. Clinton was able to restore his image, and that of his party, as safe and centrist -- the posture that his chief cheerleader, the Democratic Leadership Council, had long argued was the key to party electoral success far into the future.

But when Vice President Al Gore was denied the presidency by a whisker in 2000, the centrists accused Mr. Gore of having strayed from the New Democratic path by engaging in what they called the "class warfare" of shopworn New Deal days. They also hit Mr. Gore for not having adequately used the persuasive New Democratic voice of Mr. Clinton himself.

The old party split on liberal-centrist lines resurfaced earlier this year when Mr. Gore's 2000 running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, said he thought Mr. Gore's rhetoric may have cost the Democratic ticket the election because it countered New Democratic efforts to erase the party's old image as hostile to business.

But coming at the time when corporate America was reeling from revelations of corruption and greed, Mr. Gore insisted he was right in taking the side of victimized workers and small investors, whether or not doing so was assaulted as class warfare.

In the elections just ended, Democratic leaders did try to tie President Bush into the corporate scandals, but to little effect. He proved to be insulated from such efforts by his popularity as a wartime president, and Mr. Bush energetically brought that popularity to bear at the polls.

In their post-mortems, the Democrats are now awash in recriminations over their party's failure to offer stiffer opposition and convincing policy alternatives to Mr. Bush at a time of economic woe and an impending second front in Iraq, even as the war on terrorism continues.

Beyond the contest for House Democratic leadership, this party split on how to proceed will inevitably be part of the jockeying for position for the 2004 presidential nomination. Mr. Gore is an obvious candidate to continue a confrontational course. Mr. Gephardt, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Mr. Lieberman, having shied away from that course in the midterms, will face a challenge getting back on it.

Of the 2004 prospects, only Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has taken a clearly confrontational positionon Iraq, though he did vote for the war resolution while holding his nose, leaving himself an escape route if things go badly.

In all, it's a shaky outlook for a Democratic resurrection, for the party and for those vying to lead it out of the wilderness in which it now finds itself.

Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington bureau. His column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.