DATE: Tuesday, July 29, 1997                TAG: 9707290001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Perry Morgan 

                                            LENGTH:   71 lines

FOR REPUBLICANS, GINGRICH IS HARDLY THE PROBLEM CLINTON HAS MADE THE REPUBLICANS DONORS TO DEMOCRATS OF SO MANY DOCTRINAL TRANSPLANTS THAT THEY ARE HARD-PRESSED TO FIND A LIBERAL TO PIN A LABEL ON. AND WHO'S TO RECAPTURE THE WHITE HOUSE ?.

It's too soon for Newt Gingrich to be replaced as speaker of the House. He's burdened, of course, by unpopularity, ethics violations and outbursts of absurdities. And sometimes, facing a mirror, he hums ``Hail to the Chief.''

But this is the same Newt fellow Republicans knew when they renewed his contract. It was more important for them then to keep Gingrich's scalp from the grasping hand of Democrats than to reckon with his liabilities. Or with their own sour divisions and lack of weight and stature in overall leadership.

Gingrich's new burden is a belief of some brethren that if he had more grit, they could win ideological fights with Bill Clinton. They urge less compromising and more close-in combat, quite forgetting that many Republican ``revolutionaries'' of the Class of '94 won re-election by the skin of their teeth, and ignoring as well how poorly the GOP fares in current polls.

A Georgia Republican grouses that every time his party goes against Bill Clinton ``we get our clocks cleaned.'' Others complain the party's message isn't getting out when actually it's clear as can be: Republicans on ``principle'' want to fatten stock-market profits while insisting that tax credits to the working poor either be denied or labeled as welfare. They insisted also on holding disaster-relief funds hostage in a partisan food fight over how to conduct the census. When Democrats step forward to tighten these self-knotted nooses, Republicans squall about ``class warfare.''

They have a severe attitude problem. During the long wilderness years they learned too well how to savor defeat and cherish slights. Not unlike McGovern Democrats.

Now that they are winning on the big issues (balancing the budget, reforming welfare, curbing government, cutting taxes), they act deprived and gripe about Clinton eating their lunch. They pine for a legendary Reagan who preached pure gospel. The real Gipper was a consummate deal-cutter who campaigned in the robes of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and often gave the conservative right no more than a warm wink and a handshake.

Before they cast off Newt in another coup, Republicans ought to ponder his question: Why pick ``artificial fights'' with the other guy when he's going your way? And the old question also abides: Who among his disgruntled peers is all that superior to Gingrich? Surely not Majority Leader Dick Armey, who explains his fingerprints on the knife meant for Newt by saying he never actually thrust it. But of course. . . .

The Wall Street Journal says the party's prime need is ``four or five solid ideas to run on.'' Better yet would be a party leader able to transcend the bickering and backbiting among congressional factions with a bit of calm, perspective and balance.

There's not a whit of evidence that Americans are panting to ascend another ideological peak. Neither of the pivotal Eisenhower and Reagan candidacies depended on doctrine.

Moreover, Clinton has made the Republicans donors to Democrats of so many doctrinal transplants that they're hard-pressed to find a liberal to pin a label on. And who's to recapture the White House? Dan Quayle? Jack Kemp? Malcolm Forbes?

Regarding perspective, here's a bit from a midwestern Republican quoted in The Washington Post: ``We've become captive of a wing of our party, just as the Democrats were captive of their left in the '60s and '70s.'' Thus William Weld, esteemed by Massachusetts Republicans, is barred by Jesse Helms of North Carolina from going to Mexico as ambassador. Both these Republicans suit their constituencies, but Helms casts Weld into the ideological void.

Such princely pleasures have a price tag. So does the effort of anti-Gingrich plotters to force their party into the got-rocks caricature Bill Clinton has drawn of it. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot.

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