WASHINGTON -- On the heels of former Vice President Al Gore's latest public re-emergence, members of the Democratic National Committee, responding to a Los Angeles Times poll, are distinctly cool to the prospect of his seeking the party's presidential nomination in 2004.

While he is the front-runner among the 312 DNC members surveyed, he is barely so, being named by 19 percent to 18 percent for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and 13 percent for Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, among a field of 10 possible hopefuls listed.

Further, only 35 percent said they thought he should run again to 48 percent who said he shouldn't. That's hardly a ringing endorsement, nor is the poll's finding that 25 percent said he lost in 2000 because of his own failings -- the same percent who blamed his defeat on the election fiasco in Florida.

Nevertheless, the same poll found Mr. Gore to have a 79 percent favorable rating among the DNC members, trailing only Mr. Kerry and Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota at 85 percent. So Mr. Gore may not be quite the pariah in the party many suggest.

In assessing these figures, it's important to note that the Democratic National Committee doesn't select the party nominee; the voters in the 2004 primaries do, and historically they have been largely liberal activists. That's how the likes of George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis got to be the nominees -- and, it should also be noted, lost.

In this poll, 53 percent of the DNC members identified themselves as liberals to 46 who called themselves centrists or conservatives. In going to the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and the other early delegate-selecting states in 2004, any candidate will be well-advised to espouse views that resonate with those liberal activists.

In that light, Mr. Gore's most interesting observation in his latest coming-out is his recent comment to a New York group that he has "reluctantly come to the conclusion" that the answer to what he called the "impending crisis" in health care is a universal "single-payer national health insurance plan."

That's generally Canada's plan, with the government the single-payer and private insurance companies essentially on the outside looking in. It's pure poison to the insurance industry, which can be counted on to assail such a Gore proposal with even greater vehemence than it demonstrated in its successful attack on President Bill Clinton's complex universal health-care approach in 1993.

If Mr. Gore wants to demonstrate he will be a risk-taker as a candidate in contrast to his debilitating caution in 2000, there may not be a better issue on which to climb out on a left limb. It will certainly draw a distinction with Mr. Clinton and permit him to give voice to his most liberal inclinations while connecting with a core Democratic constituency among the poor and elderly.

Doing so will mean a clean break with his 2000 running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who has openly blamed Mr. Gore's 2000 populist rhetoric for their defeat, and with the whole New Democrat wing of the party, which has been diligently fighting the party's old New Deal bleeding-heart image to win business support.

But Mr. Gore's 2000 anti-GOP refrain that "they're for the powerful, we're for the people" resonated well earlier this year after the Enron and other corporate scandals, and Mr. Gore has not let up on it.

Nor has he hesitated to speak out forcefully against President Bush's moves against Iraq while the war on terrorism remains unwon -- a fact that Mr. Gore has been quick to point out in ending his nearly two-year silence on Mr. Bush's presidency. This position, too, may not be a vote-getter among the populace now or in 2004, but if either war should drag on, his stance will likely have considerable support then among liberal activists with a disproportionate voice in the Democratic primaries.

Mr. Gore has been criticized as dull, but nobody has ever suggested he's dumb. Running as an unvarnished liberal would be rolling the dice, but it could be his best chance -- for the nomination, anyway.

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