NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton’s Search for ‘Third Way’ on Affirmative Action May Be Doomed : Policy: President wants to find a solution to preference programs that satisfies all sides. But if the past is a guide, he may face another political disaster.

Apply enough brainpower and enough effort and the most stubborn problem can be cracked. President Clinton’s faith in that notion yielded his proposals for health care reform and gays in the military--and led to the two biggest political calamities of his term.

Now he is applying the same technique to perhaps the toughest conundrum of the age--affirmative action. With the clock ticking, the President is searching for a Clintonian “third way” approach to federal preference programs that will maintain the loyalty of his Democratic base and shield him from campaign-season attacks from the GOP.

But he is known to believe that finding the solution may be difficult--tougher, even, than structuring a new welfare reform proposal. Democrats all around him, including at least a few at the White House, privately believe that the quest for a satisfactory political and policy solution simply may be doomed.

“This is a plane that’s going to crash,” said one Democratic Senate aide. “There’s no answer here. There’s just no answer here.”

Sources close to the effort say that it is likely to include a generous dose of new rhetoric, at least some tinkering with a few preference programs and some new marching orders for the Justice Department on civil rights issues. More fundamental change, insiders say, is possible but less likely.

The difficulty of satisfying the two opposing sides on the issue was painfully apparent this week. As Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), new chairman of the Clinton-allied Democratic Leadership Council, was declaring his opposition to traditional affirmative action, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was pressing Clinton in an Oval Office meeting to come out foursquare behind the kinds of programs that have been a tradition in this country for decades.

And on Friday, a group of conservative House Democrats piled into buses and headed to the White House to argue the other way.

Jackson, whose possible presidential challenge could be costly to Clinton, declared that his anxieties “will not be relieved until Clinton goes on national TV and offers a clear and authoritative statement” reaffirming the uncompromising support that has been dogma for top Democrats for three decades.

This kind of talk clearly was agonizing for a White House that has concentrated single-mindedly over the last two months on strengthening its ties to the Democratic faithful. But the deeper and more dangerous problem for Clinton is that he is likely to be a political loser whenever race is the issue; it has had an explosive capacity in the past for dividing minorities and white males and driving whites away from the Democratic fold.

Mindful of that reality, Clinton was careful during his 1992 presidential contest to play down racial issues as much as possible and to keep his discourse fuzzy enough that each side could read what it wanted into his words. This week, presidential pollster Stanley B. Greenberg, who is said to be conducting focus groups on affirmative action in California, has indicated that Democrats would be better off politically to move toward policies that help all Americans rather than just some of them.

Given the volatility of the issue, many top Democrats were openly dismayed that Clinton would increase the political risks for himself and his party by announcing that the White House had set out to find weaknesses in the federal affirmative action programs, if there are any.

Aides said that Clinton took the step in part because of his belief that the country needs to have a coolheaded “national conversation” on the subject. His hope, they said, is that he might be able to find a better approach while seizing the issue from those who want simply to heighten racial antagonisms.

But with two GOP presidential rivals, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, hammering on the issue, White House aides reasoned, Clinton would have to formulate some position.

Yet by setting up a review--one that in some ways mimics policy adviser Ira Magaziner’s search for a health care proposal--the President has opened the way for many things to go wrong. As this week’s war of words proves, he is guaranteed continuing and potentially harmful publicity as the work continues. And indications are that the new policy may not be announced until shortly before March 24, when officials of the Justice Department’s civil rights division have been asked to testify before a House panel on affirmative action.

Clinton, moreover, could meet stiff resistance from the agency officials who have been enlisted to analyze the 160-odd federal programs, since many of them have a strong ideological commitment to preserving the programs.

“It’s hard to get advocates to recommend changes to the very programs they advocate,” acknowledged one presidential adviser. At any rate, the notion of undertaking the review seems to violate the old saw that when the stakes are high, a lawyer should not ask a witness a question unless he knows what the answer will be.

Aides taking part in the review said that Clinton has been deeply involved, reading prepared memos and published materials, and spending long hours talking and thinking about the issue.

He already has offered a few hints of the outcome, saying that he wants to stress “where we can” programs that benefit all the needy rather than specific groups. Aides have talked about finding ways to modify existing programs that offer preferences to minority business owners and job aspirants so that the government can continue helping those groups while penalizing others--including taxpayers--less.

If past experience offers any clue, Clinton’s participation suggests that the President could change the conclusions quickly and drastically by the end of the process. But those close to the project suggested that some ingredients are likely:

--The review probably will include a new and punchy description of Clinton’s position. The goal is to develop a memorable and politically appealing phrase that will work something like his statement on reproductive rights: that he is “pro-choice but anti-abortion.”

--The Administration will point to actions by the Justice Department to demonstrate their new position on the issue.

--To show firmness, the Administration could propose increasing penalties for discrimination.

Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.