WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jonesboro. Paducah. Littleton. And now Conyers. Violence in America's schools promises to be a chilling prism through which Americans view a wide range of issues in the 2000 elections. It's not just gun control. Calls for smaller schools, better mental health care, character education, flexible work schedules, school prayer -- any issue that even remotely touches the subject of school violence -- could gain campaign currency. ``What happened to you has pierced the soul of America,'' President Clinton told students and faculty at Columbine High School. ``Something profound has happened to your country because of this.'' The polls bear him out. The shootings in Littleton, Colo. drew an extraordinarily high level of public interest, ranked almost as high as any other stories this decade, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. A month later, the subject was back in the headlines when a teen-ager wounded six classmates in Conyers, Ga. No wonder politicians are struggling to solve the problem. Or capitalize on the tragedy. The starkest example of the shifting political landscape came in the congressional debate over gun control. Underestimating the demand for new restrictions, Republicans foundered during days of Senate debate until Democrats finally sent a modest gun control measure to the House. After the shootings in his home state, Democrat Max Cleland of Georgia reversed himself and voted for his party's measure. Part of his reason concerned changes in the measure, he said, but he added that school shootings weren't ``just an issue in Littleton, Colo., anymore.'' Democrats say the debate will hound the GOP in 2000. ``Republicans once again look extreme,'' said Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, chairman of the Democratic House campaign committee. Republicans are accusing Democrats of playing politics with tragedy. ``I think it's always a shame when something like this comes up and some group tries to take advantage of it,'' said Kennedy's counterpart at the GOP committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. But the politics go deeper than the gun debate. Strategists in both parties say the shootings could give resonance to a wide variety of issues in presidential, congressional and statewide races in 2000. ``It's not just guns,'' said former Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, general chairman of the Democratic Party. Democrats say the shootings highlight the need for smaller schools, smaller class sizes, more counselors and more teachers. Romer said after-school programs, often dismissed by GOP lawmakers, suddenly make more sense. ``God knows what these kids are doing between 2:30 p.m. and the time their parents come home,'' Romer said in an interview Friday. Republicans predict that private-school vouchers will be more popular, as parents seek the freedom to choose safer schools. School prayer and even tax cuts also gain credibility, they say. ``If children are praying, they are less likely to be fighting,'' Christian Coalition director Randy Tate said in a telephone interview. Republican presidential candidate Lamar Alexander argues that tax cuts will make it affordable for more parents to stay home and keep an eye on their children. ``I think that stretches it a bit,'' said Al From, head of the Democratic Leadership Council. But he also dismissed Gore's suggestion that easing traffic congestion and urban sprawl will gain support because parents can get home sooner and tend to their kids. ``If you get parents home 15 minutes early, maybe it makes a difference,'' From said. ``But only if you use that 15 minutes to change your kids.'' Several issues are being highlighted by Democrats and Republican alike, including school discipline, more parental responsibility, less violence in the mass media, more community service and a hard look at America's spiritual health. Vice President Al Gore said in a recent speech, ``This is a warning of something deeper than just the widespread availability of guns and violence in the media and video games and Internet sites, and deeper even that whatever failures of parenting have gone into this.'' ``I think that it is being seen and heard all across our country as a spiritual signal that we really have to take stock of what we want in our country -- what kind of families, what kind of communities,'' said Gore, who cast the tie-breaking vote Thursday. Nobody knows whether the shootings will still be shaping the political debate in 2000. Yet, for now, politicians are likely to keep on the subject. Gore says a Littleton parent pleaded with him to promise that the victims did not die in vain. ``I promise,'' Gore says, repeatedly. -=-=- 