WASHINGTON INSIGHT

REINVENTING THE ELEPHANT: Still smarting from losing the White House, Republicans today will announce a massive brainstorming effort to figure out who they are and where they go from here. Next month, they will begin canvassing 600,000 party leaders and contributors for ways to solve public-policy problems. The ideas will be hashed over at hearings, conferences and town meetings around the country, all under the direction of a new outfit called the National Policy Forum, a creation of GOP Chairman Haley Barbour. “The end goal is to find a way to take Republican principles and make them work,” said Barbour of the endeavor, which appears to be the most ambitious of its kind in the annals of either political party. . . . But no matter how many Republicans join the idea bazaar--whose canvasses and public meetings have a Ross Perot-like flavor--the party’s positions in 1996 are likely to be shaped mainly by a single man or woman: its presidential nominee.