DOLE MUST SELL BUDGET TO HOUSE GOP.

Byline: Alan Fram Associated Press 

As President Clinton and Congress square off this week in perhaps the finale of their 1996 budget war, there will be an interesting subplot involving firebrand House Republicans and Bob Dole's White House aspirations.

Facing a Friday deadline, administration officials and GOP leaders will try to broker a deal on a $160 billion bill financing dozens of agencies for the rest of fiscal 1996 and avoiding another federal shutdown. As they do, the measure will be a test case of whether Dole - the party's leader in November's election - can persuade confrontational House Republicans to compromise with Clinton on some of their most heartfelt principles.

The odds are Dole will succeed because it would be too costly for him and congressional Republicans to fail. A new shutdown would tarnish the Senate majority leader's reputation as an achiever, encourage support for a third-party candidate like Ross Perot, and wound efforts by GOP lawmakers to appear reasonable, not extremist.

But getting there won't be easy. There remains a deep-seated reluctance among many conservative House Republicans to compromise with Clinton on central GOP issues like spending cuts and government regulation - even though Dole, R-Kan., House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and other House leaders want them to.

"He's got to run a presidential campaign, but he doesn't have to win my congressional seat," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., one of the most conservative of the 74 House GOP freshmen. Souder says that while he and other Republicans want to avoid another shutdown, striking a deal "is like business as usual again" - anathema to first-term Republicans who pledged to change Washington's ways.

"Sometimes you can't please everyone," Dole told reporters last week about his quandary with House Republicans, adding, "It's my view and the speaker's view that we want to get some things done, and if we can't do them solely with Republican votes, obviously, we'd like to have Democratic support."

For Dole, a noisy rift with House Republicans over the bill could presage more than just another messy budget fight. It could signal a presidential campaign in which Dole has to spend time wooing core GOP conservatives, diminishing his efforts to attract more moderate swing voters.

But for now, this week's fight focuses on legislation that is half a year overdue because of conflicts between Clinton and the GOP, and among Republicans themselves over spending levels and provisions loosening environmental protection and restricting abortions.

Both the House and Senate have approved versions of the spending measure. The Senate measure is more to Clinton's liking: With Dole's support, senators added $2.7 billion extra for education and $700 million more for the environment.

Many House Republicans are insistent that the bill hold the line on spending, and that any extra funds be fully paid for with offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget. Since a compromise with Clinton is certain to include more money than the House already has approved, GOP lawmakers and aides are estimating that 25 to 100 of the 236 House Republicans could end up voting against the bill.

Part of the problem is that since Republicans took control of Congress last year, there has been intermittent tension between Dole and the more moderate Senate and their more junior, combative House brethren.

"Some of the concern in the House, and I'd share that, is we've seen very little Senate leadership in the last year and a half to lead our agenda," said Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, a member of Gingrich's leadership team. "It's been driven by the House."

For many senators, the frustration with the other chamber's tactics is mutual.

"A vote not to get something done in a sensible way is a vote for Clinton," said Dole friend Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., who is retiring next year. "There's a bigger plan here, and that bigger plan is to beat Bill. It doesn't take much brain power to figure that out."

In the end, many House Republicans believe they and Dole will work out a position they all can accept.

"We're all members of the same team here," said freshman Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a former sportscaster. "We'll decide in the huddle what we're going to to."