COLUMN RIGHT/ TOM BETHELL : 4 More Years of Bush Could Destroy GOP : But conservatives will revive it with a Democrat in the White House, as they did under Carter.

Some conservatives seem to expect that President Bush will not seek reelection. And they wax enthusiastic about an ensuing Republican free-for-all in Houston, in which their own favorites somehow get nominated. It’s all wishful thinking, of course. It may even be the best move that Bush could make if he were simply thinking about his place in the history books. But it won’t happen. Bush prides himself on his scrappy temperament: Harry Truman redux. Unless there are health problems we don’t know about, he won’t quit.

It is likely that he will lose in November, however. Such predictions are risky; newspaper clippings only a few weeks old contain solemn pronouncements about Ross Perot’s permanent impact on presidential campaigns. Yet it’s undeniable that Bush is in serious trouble, the warnings about the Democrats’ exaggerated post-convention “bounce” in the polls notwithstanding. It’s also difficult to see what Bush can do about his predicament.

Conservatives are inclined to say that Bush lacks convictions. It’s not true. Like Richard Nixon, he seems to have visualized himself as the “foreign-policy President,” hobnobbing with heads of state and laying the groundwork for a new world order (details unclear). He never did aim to get into messy domestic fights with Congress. It has been reported that Budget Director Richard G. Darman assured Bush early on that all would be plain sailing on the domestic front if only he would take Darman’s economic advice. This would leave him free to concentrate on foreign affairs. Bush took the advice, broke his “no new taxes” pledge and has been plagued by domestic problems ever since.

The past four years will probably be remembered as the time when the Cold War unexpectedly came to an end. Bush, then, will be remembered in a context of foreign affairs. But his own party is now imperiled by the change. We are told that Bill Clinton’s character is “untried and untested,” and this might have been something to worry about when nuclear missiles were aimed our way and Leonid Brezhnev was in the Kremlin. Given the Democrats’ irresoluteness on defense, the GOP for 12 years had a strong issue. Not so today.

This wouldn’t matter, if only Bush had differentiated himself from the Democrats on the domestic front. He not only failed to do this; he seemed to go out of his way to enact their agenda. Can anyone confidently say that a President Dukakis would have been able to sign into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, quotas dressed up as “civil rights,” the Clean Air Act, hate-crimes legislation, a big tax increase, massive spending increases and (coming soon) an aid package for the former Soviet Union? Yes, Bush believes in something, and it’s liberalism.

Michael Kinsley of the New Republic pointed out the other day that Bush scoffs at liberals but is one himself. Bush’s criticism of liberals is expressed only at four-year intervals, in campaign speeches. He doesn’t really mean it, though. Someone may have told him it’s what you have to do to get elected.

Recently Bush has tried using the job-creating potential of the government to “stimulate” the economy: Keynesianism he was taught at Yale. Bush helped revive the $8-billion supercollider in Texas, which the House had sensibly killed. And he has opposed defense cuts with the Democratic argument that jobs would be lost. Now Congress--of all institutions--has been put in the unaccustomed position of restraining the spending habits of the executive.

Many conservatives are now reconciled to Bush’s defeat. They do not look forward to Hillary Clinton in the White House. But Clinton himself can be viewed as the avenging angel who sweeps away the one who betrayed his supporters. What will conservatives lose by Bush’s defeat? The President has made good judicial appointments, but that alone is not enough to recommend him. In most other respects, his term has been a disaster.

As Conservative Caucus chairman and presidential candidate Howard Phillips points out, a liberal Republican in the White House has the odd effect of creating two liberal parties in Washington. Republicans in general tend to put loyalty ahead of all other principles, supporting the President come what may. The result has been a moribund conservative movement.

“Four more years,” then, hardly bear thinking about. Phillips believes that if Bush is reelected, the Republican Party--a decade ago contemplating “realignment”--will be utterly destroyed by 1996. But conservatives will revive it with a Democrat in the White House, as they did under Jimmy Carter. Until then, the best bet might be to support Phillips’ Taxpayer’s Party, which is on the ballot in 25 states.