COLUMN LEFT : On Substance, They’re Two Peas in a Pod : The consensus is one of Reagan as ideologue and Bush as practical. But most of that has to do with style.

Conventional wisdom suggests that Ronald Reagan and George Bush are two different political animals.

That wisdom contends that Reagan was the ideologue and that Bush is the practical politician. Reagan liked the politics of confrontation. Bush prefers the politics of negotiation. Reagan did not study the issues, avoided the press and was administratively disengaged. Bush does his homework, meets often with the press and runs his Administration.

That is the consensus. But most of that has to do with style, approach and work habits, not substance. For if one looks at substance, a different picture emerges.

Even their campaign styles were not that different. Reagan used the image of a “welfare queen” to send his race message to the white community. Bush used Willie Horton to accomplish the same purpose. Both were trying to polarize and make whites feel racially protected and secure.

Early on, Reagan sent an anti-labor and pro-business message to the country by firing air-traffic controllers and breaking their union. Bush did the same thing by ignoring a recommendation by the National Mediation Board to convene an emergency mediation board to settle the Eastern Airlines strike.

Reagan threatened to veto the extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Reagan attempted to weaken the law against voter discrimination. Now President Bush is threatening to veto the 1990 Civil Rights Act. The current legislation is designed to strengthen what five recent Supreme Court decisions have done to weaken civil-rights laws. And just as the Reagan Administration used emotionally charged and racial code words to build opposition to affirmative action, so too has Bush, who says he will not sign a “quota bill.”

Reagan appointed William Bradford Reynolds as his top civil-rights attorney in the Justice Department. Reynolds was philosophically and emotionally opposed to many of the laws he was sworn to uphold. But, really, how different is that from Bush, who nominated William Lucas to the same post in 1989, a person found to be inexperienced in the field of civil rights and unqualified for the job? In some ways it may have been worse, or at least more cynical, because Lucas is an African-American. It gave the appearance of something that was not there in substance.

Or take South Africa. Reagan clearly identified with President P. W. Botha and the white minority government of South Africa more than he did with Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress or those black people struggling against apartheid. In fact, he often referred to the ANC as communist. And, of course, he suggested 18 years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that the great civil-rights leader may have been a communist, too.

But Bush also identifies more with President Frederik W. de Klerk than he does with Mandela. We must remember that his initial response at learning of Mandela’s impending release from prison was to suggest that we might now need to consider lifting sanctions.

Reagan, along with South Africa, supported Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA guerrillas, with money and military hardware. UNITA is the rebel group trying to overthrow the government of Angola. The justification was that Angola was being funded by the Soviets and protected by Cuban troops.

Now the Cuban troops are gone and the Soviets have reduced their aid from $1.2 billion to $800 million, on the way to eliminating it. But Bush is increasing U.S. aid to UNITA by $10 million to $15 million. And, under Bush, aid to develop Africa still remains about one dollar per person.

Reagan surrounded himself with flags in campaign commercials. Bush visited flag factories during his campaign. Bush also wants to weaken the Constitution and Bill of Rights by passing a flag amendment.

Both Reagan and Bush are opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment, both support right-to-work laws, both support states’ rights, both are anti-choice and neither offered leadership on civil rights or have shown commitment to healing the racial divisions that have plagued our nation since before it became independent.

Thus, one is left with the conclusion that, on style, there may be some differences. Bush, as compared to Reagan, is more personable, appears to be more open and less defensive, in some instances uses kinder and gentler language, and has developed a few African-American relationships and friends.

But, on substance, Reagan and Bush are really as close as two peas in a pod.