BOB DOLE MUST NOW LEAD ON CAPITOL HILL.

Byline: Morton Kondracke

NOW that he has the GOP presidential nomination almost certainly won, Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., needs to fashion a congressional strategy that will rally his demoralized party and maximize his own chances of victory in November.

Capitol Hill Republicans feel whipped by President Clinton in the 1995 budget wars. They are divided over whether to pursue an "accomplishment" strategy in 1996, which might involve compromising with the White House, or to start pounding on Clinton right away.

And many of them feel "un-led" either by Dole, who's been off campaigning, or by Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who has not decided on a legislative strategy and sends out mixed signals on whether he'll be running the House this year or delegating leadership to Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.

Meantime, the White House is so confident it has Republicans on the run that the president is threatening to shut down the federal government again unless he gets his way on funding measures, believing that the public will once again blame the Republicans.

As the GOP standard-bearer, it's up to Dole to organize and invigorate the congressional party. Some conservative pundits think Dole should step down as majority leader, perhaps even leave Congress, and concentrate on running for president.

But he has said time and again that he'll remain leader. And so he should. The Senate floor offers him a superb platform from which to garner daily publicity and to demonstrate a new level of leadership. His job will be not merely to pass legislation, which is his forte, but also to outmaneuver Clinton, who's currently got the upper hand over Congress.

The White House is very cocky about winning another spending test with Congress. Polls show that voters blame Republicans for the two previous shutdowns, and White House aides say that public attitudes on the subject are all but cast in stone.

As a result, Clinton thinks he can force Congress to give him $7 billion more in spending for education, the environment, crime control and national service than Republicans now propose.

In an effort to compromise with Clinton, the House gave him $3.3 billion more than it approved last year, and the Senate offered $4.7 billion, but Clinton is demanding still more.

If Republicans cave in to him, the White House thinks, Clinton wins. If they don't and the government shuts down, he also wins.

To counter this tactic, Republicans say they plan to mount a TV ad campaign like the Democratic National Committee did last year on Medicare to great advantage. Their ads would represent Clinton's spending plans as "pork" akin to the economic stimulus package that conservatives killed in 1993.

After Dole figures out how to outmaneuver Clinton on spending, he needs to develop a coherent strategy for what Republicans will try to do this year.

In both the House and the Senate, members and staffers are divided over whether to pursue a "half-a-loaf" strategy passing compromise welfare, tax, and entitlement legislation that Clinton might sign - or passing merely a "minimalist" program and using GOP resources to fight the 1996 campaign.

The "half-a-loaf" school wants to pass welfare, Medicare and Medicaid reform, crime and immigration reform, and a stripped-down tax bill. Advocates argue that if Clinton signs them, he won't be able to use the term "do-nothing Congress" in November.

If he vetoes, they say, Republicans can accuse him of being a "do-nothing" president.

On the other side are those who argue that Clinton's past vetoes of welfare reform, the GOP balanced budget, and entitlement curbs already give Republicans all the ammunition they need to conduct a "big choice" campaign over the future scope of government.

Neither Gingrich nor Dole has decided which side of the argument to take. Gingrich's 1996 strategy plan sails high above such issues, saying that Republicans must identify with the public's values and economic worries rather than just fight with Democrats.

But setting the 1996 GOP strategy really isn't primarily Gingrich's task. It's Dole's. After all, he's the one who wants to lead the country.