ASHINGTON - Newt knew. He saw it coming.
In the results of the 1998 election, Newt Gingrich could foresee the aggravating task of leading a slim Republican majority, primed for confrontation by its conservative ideology, through times that called for moderation and maneuver.
So Gingrich stepped down. And House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate majority leader Trent Lott inherited that duty, with predictable results. The GOP leaders have confronted their Democratic foes over impeachment, war, tax cuts, Social Security, and health care in the last year - and lost almost every time.
Motivated by political self-interest and philosophy, moderate Republicans have repeatedly broken ranks, as scores of defectors demonstrated this week in passing the patients' bill of rights legislation in the House. Two weeks ago, President Clinton vetoed the GOP's prized tax cuts with political impunity.
With tough fights coming up on the federal budget, raising the minimum wage, and reforming the campaign-finance system, the GOP congressional leaders face further defections and potential defeats as they move into an election year.
The Republican woes in Congress are no fluke, but symptomatic of a test the party faces in the presidential race as well.
Indeed, the most prominent new critic of the Republican Congress is the party's front-runner, Texas Governor George W. Bush, who picked fights with the Capitol Hill conservatives twice in one week in an attempt to distance himself from their attitudes and performance.
''Next year's election is the Republican Party's to lose, and it is not beyond us to do that,'' said Mike Murphy, a media adviser to the presidential campaign of GOP Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Despite its setbacks, the GOP retains an opportunity to keep control of both houses of Congress and capture the White House next year - a goal it hasn't achieved since the days of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
''If we win the presidency we will hold the Congress,'' predicted conservative political consultant Lyn Nofziger. ''I don't think anybody is going to beat George Bush except George Bush. He would have to do something really dumb. It's his to lose.''
Yet success on a national scale appears possible only if the party's right wing gives its candidates some slack to maneuver.
''What George Bush is doing right now is very much what we tried to do in 1990 and 1991,'' said Al From, director of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. ''Bush is trying to take the party to the center, trying to redefine the party so it isn't viewed by the voters as the crazy right-wing Republican Party in Congress.''
After two presidential elections in which the party averaged 39 percent of the vote, Republicans face the question: Have they lost enough to learn the correct lesson?
''I'm afraid, but hopeful the Republican Party has learned from 1992 that the goal is to win the vote,'' said GOP pollster Frank Luntz.
But there are conservatives who would rather lose than move toward the center.
''Who wants a Republican moderate as president?'' asked radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. ''There's a vacuum here,'' he said of Bush. ''There's no soulful passion to change things or implement a vision.''
In pleading for ''compassionate conservatism,'' Bush runs the risk of demoralizing conservative activists who, alienated by the governor's barbs, could sit on their hands next fall or vote for a Reform Party candidate.
The GOP leaders in Congress are ''inept,'' Nofziger said, but ''I think George W. has to be careful. You don't abandon your base. He needs the right wing of the party. He needs the Christian conservatives. He needs the whole batch.''
Bush also needs to clinch the nomination. And conservative rivals like Steve Forbes wasted no time planning mailings, fax attacks, and advertising campaigns to highlight Bush's alleged betrayal of GOP conservatives.
''It is not easy to change a political party. You go through bloody fights,'' said From. ''I don't think it is clear yet whether Bush will prevail or the Republicans in the House will.''
By week's end, the congressional leaders got Bush to step back from his remarks - though not before dozens of GOP congressmen, perhaps emboldened by their front-runner's critique, deserted the party leaders' rights bill.
The GOP problem in Congress is a matter of mathematics. Conservatives make up a majority of the Republican majority and so set policy and elect the congressional leaders. But because Republicans hold so slim an overall advantage, a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats determine the fate of many issues.
The Republicans who control the caucuses and committees - many of whom represent conservative districts or states in the South and West - keep pushing their leaders to confront the Democrats and reject compromise. In doing so, they are faithfully representing their consciences and constituents.
''They can't help themselves,'' said former GOP senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York. But ''there's no way they can win this battle.''
With a budget fight looming between Congress and the White House, the House Republicans are facing further defeats, D'Amato said. Clinton ''is going to let them hang,'' he said. ''He's got all the cards.''
To meet their budget priorities, the GOP leaders will have to propose cuts in popular federal programs. Then Clinton ''is going to come right after them,'' said D'Amato. ''If it's child care - bang! - he'll be there. If it's education - bang! - he'll be in there. If it's not helping the farmers who've been ravaged - boom! - he'll be there.''
Yet the Republicans may be excused for their difficulty interpreting the mixed message of an electorate that says it wants a return to morality and order, but gives Clinton huge ratings in polls, said Luntz.
''The public yearns for values, but doesn't want anyone to tell them how to act,'' he said. ''We have become social libertarians within a spiritualistic framework.''
Nofziger agreed. ''I think this is the most corrupt administration'' and ''the most corrupt president in the history of the country,'' he said. ''But thank God for term limits or he would probably be elected again.''
