GOP May Rue Conservative Tilt of Nation : Republicans: The party might be headed for the political fringes as both Thomas and Duke victories reveal facets of extremism.

No sooner had Clarence Thomas’ bloody Supreme Court confirmation victory thrilled GOP strategists than ex-Nazi David Duke’s strong primary showing in Louisiana sent them reaching for the Maalox. There’s a lesson here for Republicans and Democrats alike: U.S. conservatism is not just on a roll--it’s walking a tightrope.

Conventional wisdom tends to emphasize the Democratic opposition’s vegetable-like quality. But it’s worth underscoring the rightward thrust of October’s two big political events. First, the confirmation of a black conservative who built 70%-approval levels among blacks by accusing white liberals and civil-rights groups of trying to “lynch” him. It’s probably the first time Jesse Helms and Louis Farrakhan cheered together.

Then, a week later, came the stunning emergence of Duke, former neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard, as the GOP candidate for governor of Louisiana. Duke, who helped blow out candles at Adolf Hitler birthday parties well into the 1980s, beat the incumbent Republican governor in an open primary and now faces Democrat Edwin W. Edwards in November. Duke told reporters his heart went out to Thomas--they were attacked by many of the same people.

That says something about the enormity of what’s happening here. In significant ways, U.S. cultural politics have swung sharply rightward, implicitly repudiating activist groups like the National Organization for Women and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The problem for Republicans, though, is that it’s a dangerous triumph. Like the liberals of 1964--in the wake of Barry M. Goldwater’s debacle--the GOP is in a position to go farther than the public wants.

The Bush White House would have been better off with a much less conservative result. If moderate, pro-abortion rights Gov. Charles (Buddy) Roemer, a former Democrat, had won, the GOP would have had its first governor of Louisiana and Duke would not be pushing toward national politics.

Similarly, if Thomas had been rejected, the GOP would have a political martyr--much as the two Southern Supreme Court nominees rejected by the Senate 20 years ago were repackaged as martyrs and so helped Richard M. Nixon realign Dixie. What Bush has instead is a Supreme Court justice who could be at the mercy of unexpected statements from unexpected witnesses and a conservative court that might start handing down unpopular decisions in time for the 1992 elections.

That’s because the conservative tide did roll, and it’s not hard to explain why. In the last 25 years, cultural liberalism became a caricature of itself--with dreamy feminists calling for third parties; prissy New England governors furloughing hardened criminals; aging civil-rights leaders unable to redefine unworkable goals, and leftist college professors accusing Christopher Columbus of hemispheric genocide. Leaping on such weaknesses, attack-dog conservatism routed liberalism like a pack of wolves overrunning a kennel of poodles.

Nonetheless, because even the dullest liberals might finally be learning from their mistakes and because the American people have a long record of making smart decisions when U.S. politics reaches a critical stage, the explosiveness we’re now seeing in elections will undoubtedly produce a major political watershed later this decade. Often, as in 1928 and 1964, the about-to-fade ideology in power in Washington appears strongest just as it is developing the constituency strains and excesses that will pull it apart. Thomas and Duke are both relevant, and both parties will be affected.

Let’s begin with the Democrats, whose ineptitudes of 1991--from the Persian Gulf to the Thomas hearings, with occasional detours for things like congressional check bouncing--have pushed even Vice President Dan Quayle off the late-night television mockery circuit. The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee reinforced that image. Lacking an instinct for the jugular, they go for the capillaries.

Although the Supreme Court fight strengthened the party’s image of subservience to feminist and civil-rights groups, because Democrats handled the Thomas matter so poorly, they are now under attack from these same groups. The Democratic coalition is suffering strains: the National Organization for Women wants to start a third party; with black conservatives multiplying, Democrats could lose 20% to 25% of blacks to the GOP. Democratic voter identification has been dropping--even though some losses were recovered this summer, as the short-term effects of the war wore off.

What’s less well understood is the growing catalogue of Republican problems. GOP senatorial inquisitors also earned negative ratings in the Thomas hearings, parading a belligerence that suggested why the party has little domestic policy beyond electric chairs and bank bailouts. Gender may still emerge as a GOP problem--while a majority of women did support Thomas, their political consciousness seems to be rising. Women’s anger could aggravate the GOP’s 1992 internal divisions on abortion. Mary Dent Crisp, head of the National Republican Coalition for Choice, says some of her group’s member in Florida and New York may leave the party.

The prime GOP embarrassment, of course, is Duke’s status as the first modern GOP candidate for governor who is a former Ku Klux Klan leader and ex-American Nazi. The White House’s dismissal, technically correct because Louisiana has a non-party primary, is to say Duke is not an actual GOP nominee, so they don’t have to deal with him.

But that’s a cop-out. The problem is the President does not want to campaign against him, for three reasons. First, what Duke is saying sounds a lot like what George Bush says; second, most Louisiana Republicans--and probably a majority of all whites--will vote for Duke over Edwards, and third, if Bush provokes Duke, it will increase the likelihood that he will oppose Bush in several 1992 Southern primaries--or even run for President as an independent.

If Duke attacks Bush next year for conning the rod-and-gun clubs while delivering for the country clubs, or if Bush has to oppose Duke as a racist, the GOP’s Southern white working-class majorities would shake from Abilene to Appomattox. The civil-rights legislation Bush agreed to on Thursday could also become controversal. In any case, if Bush doesn’t attack or oppose Duke, the President who claimed to be fighting the second Hitler in Iraq could emerge as a second Neville Chamberlain in Louisiana.

To divert attention from the Thomas encounter, moreover, Democrats seem to be intensifying their attack on Bush for the weak state of the economy--proposing popular middle-class tax cuts as one remedy. Recession economics and favoritism to the rich are a GOP Achilles’ heel, and if the saber wounds suffered by the Democrats in the Thomas fight motivated them to reply in kind over the economy, the GOP could find it a bad trade.

Then there is the Supreme Court. In the short run, the Democrats, having lost the Thomas fight, face the prospect of the Supreme Court shifting far enough to the right to make their heads spin. It’s in the longer run, however, that the politics get tricky for the GOP.

For the Supreme Court is one of the great lagging indicators of U.S. politics. It mirrors the politics of yesterday, not tomorrow. At its most lopsided--a fair description for today’s overwhelming conservative coloration--the court reflects the entrenched ideological viewpoint that has already enjoyed 20-30 years of White House power. The result, apparent in the watershed confrontations around 1800, 1828, 1860, 1932 and 1968, is that the court becomes a controversial bulwark of fading politics and insistences just as a new set is beginning to emerge.

While this may not matter in 1992, it certainly should by 1996--presumably to the benefit of the Democrats. Over the next few years, a conservative court will crunch the permissive sociology and criminology that has nurtured public distrust of Democrats. The battle will then move on and the spotlight will focus instead on conservative excesses. Abortion is almost certain to be a centerpiece, and women will certainly be mobilized.

Whatever happens to the economy, these would all be reasons for Republicans to worry: a too conservative Supreme Court provoking centrist swing voters; a political movement of angry women, and Duke leading “Bubba” voters out of the GOP presidential coalition barely a generation after they came in.

On the other hand, even if the Republicans do face their first serious, divisive threat from the right, there’s still another question: Can the Democrats emerge from the mummy of American liberalism to take advantage of the opportunity?