WASHINGTON INSIGHT

DEMOCRATIC VISIONS: As Republicans fantasize over just how great their gains will be in the November elections, Democrats face a rising tide of nightmare scenarios. They can toss and turn thinking about life under Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who has been dubbed by some as the Darth Vader of American politics, or House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the mastermind of slash-and-burn GOP tactics. Imagine loyalists trying to sleep through visions of Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman or Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) as Banking Committee chairman--with subpoena power to make President Clinton’s life even more miserable over the Whitewater matter. As if all this isn’t enough to give Democrats a fit, they can ponder this: Under the Constitution, who would be the second person in line of presidential succession behind Clinton and Vice President Al Gore? Try “President Gingrich.”

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DRAWING A LINE: The Justice Department this week quietly suggested that there are limits to the special interest that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has shown toward discrimination based on sexual orientation. A former Portland, Ore., police chief withdrew as a top contender to head the department’s community police program after a Justice official expressed concern about his support of gays and lesbians. Tom Potter, who had marched in uniform in several gay pride parades in his city, said a Justice official worried that his involvement could hurt Clinton with conservative groups. A department official acknowledged that Potter’s stance could prove “distracting,” and that selection of the head of the Cops program, which hopes to help fund 100,000 new community police officers in U.S. cities and towns, is still a month away.

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DESPERATION SHOT: As if there were a shortage of national campaign issues, the Senate race in Wisconsin has taken a bizarre swerve into the politics of professional basketball. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Herbert Kohl is also the millionaire owner of the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Assn. His opponent, Republican state Rep. Bob Welch, far behind in both money and polls, began running a television spot earlier this month making an issue of Kohl’s negotiations with Glenn (Big Dog) Robinson, who has been holding out while seeking a contract reportedly worth $100 million. The point of Welch’s ad seemed to be that if Kohl were willing to spend that much on a basketball player, he would also play fast and loose with taxpayer funds. If that were the idea, it backfired. Kohl has refused to agree to such a large contract and has been winning applause on the campaign trail when he talks about it.

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BACK TO THE FUTURE: Stung by Clinton’s campaign trail warnings that a vote for GOP candidates this November will bring back the allegedly dire days of Reaganomics, conservatives are striking back. A panel of erstwhile Reaganite economists assembled by National Review economics editor Lawrence Kudlow is arguing that Clinton’s mix of high taxes and belatedly tightened interest rates will produce a return to the stagflation that marked the presidency of the last Democratic chief executive, Jimmy Carter. Kudlow, economics director for the Office and Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, warns that inflation will reach 4% to 5% in the next two years and the growth rate will be only 1% to 2%, with a possible 20% slump in the stock market.