Aides Say Clinton May Drop Rights Nominee : Justice Department: Guinier’s views on race draw fire. President’s advisers argue over nomination process.

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton is moving toward pulling the plug on his controversial nomination of C. Lani Guinier to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Administration officials said Tuesday, as his advisers squabbled over how she was chosen in the first place.

Aides cautioned that Clinton, noted for his reluctance to cause pain to others, has not made up his mind to drop the nominee, who has been accused by opponents of advocating views that amount to racial separatism.

But Clinton aides, including the circle of presidential advisers whose strategists have been trying to push the Administration toward the center of the political spectrum, clearly were sending public messages to Guinier and her supporters that the nomination had become too hot and that she should pull out.

Whether the embattled nominee will heed those signals, however, remains unclear. As of Tuesday, Guinier aides were still calling reporters, columnists and interest groups to set up interviews for the nominee. And supporters were starting to denounce the White House for having failed to mount a proper defense of Guinier in the first place and for suggesting that the nomination be abandoned before Guinier has had full opportunity to defend herself.

Clinton has been under increasing pressure to withdraw the nomination, particularly in the last week as several influential Jewish leaders have joined what began as an effort by Republican conservatives to defeat the 43-year-old nominee. In recent days, roughly 20 Senate Democrats have warned the Administration that the nomination would face severe difficulties in the Senate.

As a result, Clinton is in a difficult spot. If he goes ahead with the nomination, he faces a bruising fight in the Senate, which will undoubtedly hurt him politically even if he wins.

“The argument against going forward is, No. 1, you’re not sure you can win and, No. 2, you’re not sure you want to win, because winning is going to cost you,” said one senior Senate aide with close ties to the White House.

But if Clinton drops Guinier or she withdraws--the option preferred by many on the White House staff--he will come under intense fire from civil rights groups and women’s activists who will accuse him of buckling under pressure. “There’s already a perception that, when he runs into resistance, he gives in,” a prominent defender of Guinier said. “What’s this going to say?”

That unappetizing choice has led to in-house finger-pointing about how the White House got into such a situation, with some apparently blaming White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, whose office was in charge of clearing the choice of Guinier. Critics within the Administration argue that Nussbaum failed to understand the political danger Guinier’s views represented.

A source close to Nussbaum conceded that the counsel’s office may have misjudged the politics involved. The source said lawyers who reviewed the nomination realized that some of Guinier’s views went beyond Administration policy but believed that the Senate would accept her on grounds that Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno--not Guinier--would be setting policy. The lawyers underestimated how much conservative activists would be able to turn Guinier into an issue and how quickly the Senate could polarize on a nomination, the source said.

Critics of the Administration argued that the conservative success stemmed in large part from White House failure to rally support for its nominee. Ignoring the first rule of such battles, the White House essentially allowed the conservatives to dominate the debate for weeks, mounting no vigorous defense and letting Guinier’s opponents establish the public definition of her views.

But Tuesday night, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno strongly endorsed Guinier in an interview with the Associated Press, calling her a superb choice. “We’re going to try our very best to get her confirmed,” Reno said.

The controversy surrounding Guinier centers on several law review articles she wrote suggesting ways to modify the Voting Rights Act to address problems black Americans face in the political system. At several points, Guinier questioned whether traditional ideas of majority rule could ever be fair to a distinct racial minority and suggested that providing real political power to minority groups might require fundamental restructuring of the political system.

Conservative groups declared that her views amounted to a desire to impose racial quotas on the political system.

Guinier’s supporters have maintained that her writings have been mischaracterized and that she was merely trying to explore ideas, not necessarily to expound policies that she would try to impose on the Justice Department.

Guinier has been a University of Pennsylvania law professor for the past five years. Before that, she headed the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s voting rights project for 7 1/2 years.