POLITICAL BRIEFING

GORE PROSPECTS: By establishing himself as his party’s most visible and forceful spokesman in the post-Desert Storm policy debate, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) is shortening the odds that he will enter the 1992 Democratic presidential competition.

“It certainly has all the earmarks of someone who is looking to make a run,” said one well-connected consultant after the Tennessee senator last week criticized Bush’s “do-nothing” policy “while the Kurds and others who oppose Saddam Hussein are being slaughtered.”

Gore, a 1988 presidential candidate, is uniquely positioned among Democrats to accuse the victorious commander-in-chief of not being tough enough in the war’s aftermath. He is the only one of his party’s 1992 presidential possibilities who last January backed Bush on the use of force in the Gulf.

REDISTRICTING: Republicans hope to maximize their gains in the decennial redistricting of congressional seats by working with blacks and Latinos to create more minority districts. Although Republicans in most cases have little hope of winning districts in which minorities constitute a majority, creating such seats can open opportunities for the GOP to win adjoining seats currently held by white Democrats. The math works this way: If blacks or Latinos now dispersed through several districts are concentrated into a single seat, surrounding Democrats who now depend on those minority votes must win the votes of more white voters--who are generally more inclined toward the GOP.

With the federal voting rights law encouraging the creation of minority seats wherever possible, this pattern could affect redistricting in more than a dozen states. In Texas, the likely creation of a new black-majority district in Dallas and a Latino-majority seat in Houston will force Democratic Reps. Martin Frost, John Bryant and Michael A. Andrews to accept districts in which the GOP will be more competitive. The GOP says Democratic Reps. Dan Rostenkowski and William O. Lipinski of Illinois could face problems if a Latino seat is created in Chicago.

In Arkansas, where the state Legislature has approved, and Gov. Bill Clinton intends to sign, a plan that does not create a majority black district, litigation is “likely,” says Republican National Committee chief counsel Benjamin Ginsberg. The demand for more Latino seats in California could create complications for white--and black--Democratic representatives.

LOUISIANA STRATEGY: As Democrats gird for an effort to regain the Louisiana governorship this fall, a new poll suggests that their best strategy is to emphasize middle-class economic issues, rather than to try to offset the right-wing thunder of ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on racial issues.

The Democrats lost the governorship recently without a vote, when incumbent Democrat Buddy Roemer switched parties and announced he would seek reelection as a Republican. His main opposition in the state’s one-party primary is expected to come from Duke and former Democratic Gov. Edwin W. Edwards.

After surveying white Louisiana voters who backed Duke in last year’s Senate race, pollster Geoffrey Garin said racial issues were less influential in their ballot choice than resentment at major party candidates for ignoring what they regarded as middle-class concerns. Garin argues that a Democratic candidate competing in the Oct. 19 primary would be wasting time trying to rival Duke’s “anti-minority, anti-welfare” message since that would appeal mostly to voters who are more likely to vote Republican anyway.