AND THEN THERE’S THAT VP THING...

Could the Republican Party, the party of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, of Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan, of angry white men and Southern populism, place on its 1996 national ticket a certifiable moderate who favors abortion rights, a patrician Northeasterner . . . a woman?

At first glance, the prospect seems unlikely. The party’s moderate, once-powerful Northeastern wing is now more like a winglet. Northeasterners hold not a single top leadership role in the new Congress. The Northeast, moreover, was the only part of the country that Democrats carried in last November’s election.

Moreover, the object of the speculation is only 48, has never held national office and, until winning a come-from-behind victory for governor of New Jersey in 1993, had not even held a statewide post more exalted than utility commissioner.

And yet there stands Christine Todd Whitman. In November, as the election neared, GOP candidates in states as widespread as Oklahoma, South Carolina and Maryland held out Whitman as an example of what Republican government could deliver--particularly her dramatic pledge to cut state income taxes by 30%. In January, after President Clinton delivered his State of the Union address, Republican leaders chose Whitman to deliver the party’s response. And in February, Whitman received the ultimate political compliment--a barely veiled attack from a high-profile political opponent.

The attack came from Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition--the political operation set up by the Rev. Pat Robertson after his unsuccessful presidential bid. In a speech in Washington, Reed warned Republicans that conservative evangelical voters would desert the party if it chose a candidate for President or vice president who failed the test of strict opposition to abortion.

Analysts widely interpreted Reed’s remarks as being directed in large part against Whitman. But the tactic backfired. The major Republican presidential hopefuls, not wanting to appear to be in Reed’s pocket, all delivered statements in the ensuing weeks saying that they would not make abortion a litmus test for a running mate.

All of this has greatly increased Whitman’s stock, to the point that her name now tops many lists of possible Republican vice presidential candidates. She is a favorite of many strategists close to Sen. Bob Dole, the GOP front-runner. But she would be an unlikely running mate for Sen. Phil Gramm if the Texan were to gain the nomination. The mere mention of Gramm’s name causes her to roll her eyes heavenward.

Whitman herself has fully mastered the ritual of “running” for vice president--careful steps to keep one’s virtues in the public eye, accompanied by cheerfully worded dismissals of the idea that one is seeking the post. “I don’t even consider it happening. I just don’t think it would ever happen,” she says when asked what she might bring to a national ticket. But without missing a beat, she then ticks off the reasons a presidential nominee might look toward her. “You would have to ask whoever it was who was asking you, whether they’re looking for geographic balance, whether they’re looking for the kinds of policies that we’ve been promoting here, the commitment to tax cutting and doing it, and balancing the budget and still providing the kinds of programs that are necessary ,and getting leaner and smarter government.”

Whitman is not, of course, the only person whose name figures in the speculation. Other Republican governors, including John Engler of Michigan, George Voinovich of Ohio and Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, have been quietly angling for the job. Engler has been particularly noticeable in recent months--taking a lead position in Republican debates over welfare reform and thereby strengthening his ties to party conservatives. And then there is Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom many Republicans--and many Democrats--see as the “dream candidate” despite the fact that no one even knows which party he regards himself as closer to.

The daughter of a prominent and wealthy New Jersey family, Whitman first became involved in politics by campaigning for then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. After graduating from college in 1968, she worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Richard M. Nixon Administration and the Republican National Committee before returning to New Jersey, where she entered politics as a member of the board of freeholders--the equivalent of a county supervisor. In 1988, the state’s Republican governor, Tom Kean, appointed Whitman to the state utility board, and in 1990 she burst onto the statewide scene by almost beating New Jersey’s senior senator, Democrat Bill Bradley.

Young, articulate, telegenic, Whitman could, potentially, bring many strengths to the Republicans. Putting a woman on the ticket could help close the “gender gap” that has seen Democrats build a strong advantage among women voters even as Republicans have solidified their position among men. And her pledge to slash state income taxes--the Legislature has enacted a 15% cut so far--has made her an embodiment of one of the GOP’s most effective issues. (Her critics, however, accuse her of gimmicking the books to keep the budget in balance.) Finally, her relative moderation on social policy could soften the Republican image.

That same moderation, however, could become a major liability for Whitman within her own party. On issues such as welfare, for example, the gap separating her from the majority of Republicans in Congress is both wide and deep. Whitman rejects the central component of the House Republicans’ welfare-reform proposals. “I’ve always objected to a mandatory two- years- of- welfare- and- you’re- off if you don’t have a job, if the jobs aren’t there. You can’t force people to do that.” Whitman also dismisses proposals to cut off all welfare benefits for mothers under 18 and for legal immigrants--both major parts of the Republican reform bill.

And while she insists, in proper political fashion, that talk of splits within the party has been exaggerated, she seems almost to welcome a chance to take on her ideological opponents. “We’re so used to measuring commitment by the blood on the floor,” she says. “That’s an extreme part of conservatism that lays down those lines and will not budge and will not compromise, and they will tell you that the minute you do, you’re less than pure. Well, nobody’s pure. The world isn’t that way, people aren’t that way, (and) society can’t function that way.”