Not all Democrats are despondent over what they saw at the polls last week. New York Dems seem to be feeling pretty darn good about themselves and - as much of a longshot as it is - now think they can take over the state Senate in a few years. (They haven't held the state Senate in Albany since 1965.)

Why the optimism? Any number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that favorite daughter Hillary Clinton is now the party's top contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

But far-looking hopes aside, New York Democrats saw a demonstration of one of the most pitiful GOP state operations in the country last week, when Republican candidate Howard Mills barely showed up in his race against incumbent Sen. Chuck Schumer. (At least Alan Keyes got some publicity while he was being stomped in Illinois by Barack Obama. Mills, whose campaign started well before Keyes', was essentially nowhere to be seen as he lost to Schumer by almost fifty points.)

Mills' campaign against Schumer was the most pathetic statewide race the Republicans have fielded since they ran Pierre Rinfret for governor in 1990. (Rinfret, on the campaign trail that year, referred to then-Senate candidate Carol Bellamy as "that idiot woman" and took to personally writing threatening notes to reporters.)

It's one thing to be outspent by a strong incumbent, as Mills was by Schumer. It's another thing entirely to barely even show up.

New York's Republican Party, really, is suffering from multiple-personality disorder. It boasts perhaps the second-most popular Republican in the country - Rudy Giuliani - but also the lower-key, weird-smiling George Pataki as governor. Michael Bloomberg, a liberal Republican, is New York City's mayor. But he's never wasted an opportunity to rip President Bush for the levels of federal homeland security dollars provided to the city.

And, in the Schumer-Mills race this year, Bloomberg endorsed - you got it! - Schumer.

Look, there's a reason the New York State Senate has been run by Republicans for decades. Outside of New York City - both upstate on Long Island - Republicans have been traditionally strong and voters traditionally more conservative.

And Giuliani, though liberal on "social issues," destroyed the ridiculously inept David Dinkins to win the New York City mayoralty in 1993 on a strict, no-tolerance, law-and-order platform. (Subsequently, the city's murder rate dropped from 2,000 a year under Dinkins to one of the lowest rates for any big city in the country.)

But the state party needs to figure out its identity. Mills forfeited much of the conservative vote in the state because he's pro-choice; the state Conservative Party then backed pro-lifer Marilyn O'Grady. They split what little anti-Schumer vote there was. Amid all the ineptitude, Schumer never had to answer to voters for his role in blocking President Bush's judicial nominations - including African American and Hispanic nominees.

Pataki, as the titular head of the state GOP organization, allowed that to happen and has allowed Democrats to maintain hope of taking back the state Senate and, even, sending Sen. Clinton to the White House. Once all the scrutiny over Sen. Arlen Spector ends, conservatives may want to take a look-see at Pataki's operation in Albany.