POLITICS : North Took His Lumps but He’ll Be Back, Experts Say : Loser in Senate race, he is expected to remain a major presence on the GOP stage. One analyst believes he must redefine himself.

Back when he was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, Oliver L. North was in a car crash that nearly ended his career, not to mention his life. Officials thought his injuries too severe for him to continue at the academy, but he begged to be let back in--and went on to become a collegiate boxing champ.

Last week, Ollie North ran into the political equivalent of that car crash, losing the Virginia Senate race to a Democratic incumbent so weakened by scandal and anti-incumbency sentiment that almost any Republican was favored to beat him. Immediately packing his family off on a vacation to recuperate, North left friends and foes alike wondering if he can ever recover from his head-on collision with Virginia voters.

But many analysts, Democrats and Republicans, say it is too soon to write off North as a political force or a candidate for statewide or even national office. They predict that he will remain a commanding presence on the extreme right of the GOP stage for some time to come.

“There is just so much energy in both the name and what he represents that I’m certain he will continue to be a real presence in Virginia politics, and his demonstrated ability to raise money for conservative causes will assure that,” says Patrick McSweeny, the state Republican Party chairman.

Already there is talk of him challenging Republican Sen. John W. Warner in 1996.

North’s campaign aides say the former Iran-Contra figure intends to remain active in politics but has not yet decided what he will do.

But Ed DeBolt, a GOP political consultant who advises a number of Virginia Republicans, notes that, despite his loss to Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb, North remains in a strong position to mount a comeback if he “manages his resources wisely” and uses the next two years to “redefine himself by raising his positives and lowering the negatives.”

North’s negatives, of course, include his 1989 felony convictions for shredding documents, accepting illegal gratuities and misleading Congress about the Iran-Contra affair--the complicated secret arrangement that sent arms to Iran for release of hostages and generated cash for rebels in Nicaragua. North managed the operation from the basement of the White House as a senior aide for the National Security Council during the Ronald Reagan Administration.

Although the convictions were subsequently overturned on a technicality, North’s dark background and former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s characterization of him as a congenital liar cast a shadow over his campaign that none of his professional image-makers were ultimately able to dispel.

Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Mary Washington College in Fredricksburg, Va., said North “had a lot going for him in the campaign--the anti-incumbent mood, the anti-Clinton mood and the fact that he was running against a candidate tainted by personal scandal, and yet he still couldn’t win because the voters saw him as someone they couldn’t trust. In the end, people were still afraid of him.”

Yet Rozell and other analysts agree with GOP strategists who believe that the charisma North exhibited in the campaign established him as a permanent and possibly ascendant figure on the political landscape.

“Two years ago, a lot of people thought the climate was right for someone like Ross Perot, but he ultimately discredited himself,” one campaign aide said. “This year things looked right for Ollie. We were wrong about that. But although he took his lumps, North in some ways ended this campaign stronger than when he started. He did not discredit himself among his supporters.”

Indeed, North’s core following of blue-collar conservatives and evangelical Christians seems, if anything, more committed to him, blaming his defeat on a conspiracy by liberal Democrats and the media. A spellbinding speaker, North retains their allegiance and his access to them through a 250,000-member national mailing list that he used to help raise $18 million, more money than any other Senate candidate this year.

“With his mailing list and his ability to inspire intense loyalty among a significant segment of the Republican population, Oliver North is not going to go away,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “He will have a prominent role, but the only question is whether it will be as a candidate again.”

The Virginia Republican Party, in spite of its anger at Warner for splitting the party by backing rival Republican J. Marshall Coleman, is likely to have second thoughts about nominating North to run again in 1996 in view of his loss to Robb, who, going into the campaign, was considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats running for reelection this year. But even if North does not run, his support for a rival candidate could help ensure that Warner loses.

And DeBolt even sees a parallel between North and Richard Nixon, who staged a national comeback in 1968 after his politically disastrous defeat to John F. Kennedy eight years earlier.

“There is no reason why North can’t redefine himself as Nixon did if he looks at his experience carefully,” DeBolt said. “All his negatives are already out there, and he’s got two years to repair the damage. If he uses his newfound friendships, his mailing lists and his fund-raising expertise for Republican Party causes, North is likely to be a more credible candidate in the years to come.”