NEWS ANALYSIS : Trade Debate Could Spur Nationalistic Candidacies : Politics: The battle is fueling a populist conservative movement. But voters have proved wary of protectionists.

The Senate vote expected today on the world trade accord could emerge as one of the first events molding the 1996 presidential race.

Like last year’s battle over the North American Free Trade Agreement and the landslide California vote for Proposition 187 this fall, the debate on the world trade agreement has exposed divisions in both parties that could echo through the 1996 contest.

In particular, the struggle has demonstrated the growing assertiveness of a populist conservative movement that fundamentally rejects the pillars of an internationalist foreign policy upheld by presidents of both parties since World War II: support for open trade, open immigration and extensive diplomatic and military engagement abroad.

The fight over the trade pact--which would create a new World Trade Organization to govern global commerce as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade--could focus these issues by raising the possibility of presidential candidacies bearing an economic nationalist message in 1996.

On the one hand, conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, a leading critic of the trade pact, immigration and foreign alliances, broadly hinted this week that he will carry this banner into the 1996 Republican presidential primaries.

More important, a victory for the trade agreement in the Senate today, as now appears likely, could sunder the fleeting alliance between the GOP and Ross Perot, who only weeks ago urged his supporters to vote Republican in the midterm congressional election. Now, Perot says that if the Senate approves the trade agreement, he will start work immediately on his own third party, which could become the vehicle for another independent White House bid.

“If they pass it and have insulted the American voters, Ross is going to devote his energy to beginning the third political party,” says Russell Verney, national policy coordinator for Perot’s United We Stand, America, Inc. organization.

But while a Perot party could add a new element of unpredictability to an already unstable political environment, history suggests that a purely protectionist message may have only limited electoral appeal. While Americans typically have voiced protectionist sentiments in public opinion polls, they have not rewarded presidential candidates--from Republican John B. Connally in 1980 to Democrats Richard A. Gephardt or Bob Kerrey--who have sought the White House under that banner.

“Americans are loath to turn over leadership to candidates who run as protectionists,” says Republican economic consultant Jeff Bell. “That’s been the rule over the last few decades.”

The most dynamic opposition on the trade issue has come from Perot, Buchanan and other conservatives who believe that the agreement will infringe on American “sovereignty” by giving the new World Trade Organization authority to impose sanctions if it considers U.S. regulations, such as workplace safety rules, an unfair barrier to foreign products.

This growing conservative skepticism about free trade parallels a wider turning away by the right from internationalist positions that have become traditional for Republicans. As National Security Adviser Anthony Lake put it in a speech Wednesday, “There is a dangerous isolationist backlash in the air.”

On immigration--despite protests from a faction led by former Cabinet secretaries Jack Kemp and William J. Bennett--the center of gravity within the GOP has shifted toward greater restrictions, such as Proposition 187 and the proposal in the House Republican welfare plan to eliminate virtually all social welfare benefits for legal immigrants who are not yet citizens.

At the same time, a growing number of Republicans--who broadly supported aggressive engagement abroad during the Cold War--are reverting to the hands-off, even isolationist, positions common in the party through World War II. Republicans almost uniformly opposed President Clinton’s use of troops in Haiti and have questioned the deployment of U.S. troops as part of multinational United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Many Republican analysts agree that there will be a measurable audience among GOP presidential primary voters for an inward-looking populist message that blends protectionism, isolationism and opposition to immigration.

But most experts agree that the size of that audience is limited. Frank Luntz, who has polled for both Buchanan and Perot, says that “between 15% and 20%” of the GOP primary base might be attracted to an economic nationalist message.

Among the leading potential 1996 GOP presidential candidates, only Buchanan is opposing the trade agreement. Sources close to Buchanan say that the fight over the pact makes it more likely he will run.

Perot’s threat to form a third party if Congress approves the trade agreement--first announced last week at a rally in Wichita, Kan.--potentially could have greater political impact.

The prospect of an independent Perot movement is one of the few bright signs for Democratic strategists. On one hand, it portends Perot peppering the GOP congressional leadership with the same pointed barbs that he regularly levels at Clinton. On another, it offers the possibility of the mercurial billionaire splitting the anti-Clinton vote with another independent presidential bid in 1996.