Here’s the election-year headline congressional Republicans want: “Dems shun tornado victims.” And in smaller type: “Troops in Bosnia, Persian Gulf left in the lurch.”

Here’s what they’ll get if they persist in using disaster relief for political purposes: “GOP embarrasses itself — again.”

It was just last summer, remember, that House Republican leadership tried linking federal disaster funds with their objections to the way Census 2000 is to be conducted. But instead of coming across as determined advocates for a good old-fashioned American head count, they got skewered for toying with flood-ravaged North Dakotans.

So now the elephant that forgets everything but a grudge is back with a cunning new plan: Take the $2.2 billion needed for disaster relief and overseas troop deployments from HUD’s low-income rental assistance program. Make the Democrats choose between their Cadillac-driving welfare queen constituents and all those Alabamans whose homes now are kindling. Throw in the men and women preserving the peace in foreign lands for good measure and by Election Day the public surely will perceive the Democrats as a bunch of bleeding-heart, peacenik liberals who don’t care about real Americans.

It’s a plan just crazy enough to work — if the objective is for House Republicans to make themselves look ridiculous. For not only is it cynical, self-serving and mean-spirited, but it’s too late. Senate Republicans already came up with a better idea: Take the disaster/military deployment money from the budget surplus and stay clear, way clear, of being blamed for making nearly 1 million poor kids, single moms and old folks homeless.

HUD estimates that yanking $2.2 billion from its $12 billion Section 8 rental assistance program would cause some 975,366 Americans (including 5,875 Mainers) to lose their apartment subsidies. The average household income of Section 8 recipients — predominantly single mothers and the elderly — is $7,500 a year. And while Section 8 certainly is no stranger to waste, fraud and abuse, it is generally considered to one of the most tightly run assistance programs, with recipients subject to increasingly stringent eligibility and behavior guidelines and landlords to annual reviews. It is, in short, about the worst target the GOP could have picked.

Congress now is on spring break. This is an opportune time for Speaker Gingrich to reaquaint himself with the 88,000 Georgians who would be tossed out on the street under this ploy.

The recess also would be an opportune time for House Republicans to reflect upon the real purpose of supplemental disaster relief. This essential legislation is not to be used to advance a particular political ideology or for political advantage. It’s for pork — the regular emergency aid bill is consistently underfunded so Congress will have a supplemental one it can load down with all manner of goodies for the voters back home. So while the House Republicans set themselves up for another pounding, the Senate worked in a bipartisan way to meet the parking garage, aerial tramway and scenic turnoff needs of all Americans. It’s that sense of history, that ability to keep things in perspective, that makes the Senate the more deliberative, the more mature, body.