ASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — Senator Trent Lott's lament that Strom Thurmond lost his segregationist campaign for the White House in 1948 has thrust race-related issues to the forefront and is already influencing an internal Bush administration debate on what approach to take on a major affirmative action case.

Administration officials say Mr. Lott's comments have left them open to more intense scrutiny on several issues, including university admissions, judicial selections, government contracts, education and the role of religious organizations in delivering social services.

Even President Bush's coming trip to Africa, set for next month, has administration critics positioning for attack. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, said today that the trip, originally intended to discuss trade and security, must now also include a financial commitment to help the continent cope with AIDS.

"The administration's minority outreach up to now has really been aimed more at whites than blacks," said David Bositis, senior policy analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group that deals with African-American issues. "It has really been more thematic in nature, and now the substance of the initiatives will face considerable scrutiny."

No matter Mr. Lott's fate, Congressional and administration officials said it increasingly appeared that the first casualty of his problems would be Judge Charles W. Pickering's hope to be elevated to an appeals court seat.

Judge Pickering was rejected last March by the Democrats who controlled the Senate Judiciary Committee, in part because of his record on racial matters in his home state, Mississippi. Mr. Lott, his principal patron, and the White House had hoped to renominate him after the Republicans take control of the Senate in January.

Several administration officials have said that the renomination is all but dead because Democrats would surely turn the confirmation into another debate about race in Mississippi.

Perhaps most striking, a senior administration official said today that Mr. Lott's statement of support for affirmative action, which he gave on Monday night in an interview with Black Entertainment Television, has complicated a developing debate within the administration over a coming Supreme Court case.

"This was a difficult matter already," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said an internal debate had already developed over what the position the administration should take in an appeal involving the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs.

"The Lott business has been like a powerful magnet distorting the debate on this," the official said about the internal discussion, which was first reported today in The Washington Post.

The administration has a Jan. 16 deadline to declare its position in the case. The administration could enter the case on either side or could choose to stay out of the case, leaving the justices to decide on the constitutionality of the Michigan program, which is based on the notion that "diversity" is a compelling state interest.

Linda Chavez, the president of the Center for Equal Opportunity and an opponent of racial preferences, said today that she believed that the controversy around Senator Lott had made it more difficult for the administration to consider taking a position in the Michigan case.

"As a result of this, there's no question that racial sensitivity is up now in the Republican Party," Ms. Chavez said. "Senator Lott has made it difficult for us on the right side of the civil rights issue to go out and oppose racial preferences."

She said his remarks declaring his support for affirmative action were his effort "to overcorrect" for his problems but were creating more problems for the Republican Party.

Prof. Chris Edley of the Harvard Law School said, "The traditional civil rights community is focused intensely on what the Bush administration will do in the Michigan case."

Professor Edley, an official in the Clinton administration who supports the Michigan program, said that before the controversy over the Lott remarks, he and his associates had only a faint hope that Mr. Bush would choose not to oppose the university's program.

"But the chances of the president deciding to either go the other way or at least stay out have only improved after Senator Lott's comments," he said.

Professor Edley said that because the Republican Party wanted to broaden its appeal to minorities, the White House might find this an opportunity to make a statement.

"You can't think of any single action that would more dramatically demonstrate that on matters of race the G.O.P. is the party of Bush not Lott," he said.

The Lott issue may also affect some of Mr. Bush's educational programs. In January 2002, Mr. Bush signed an education bill setting new standards for educational testing and opening doors to school choice.

Now, Democrats hope to put Republicans on the defensive by arguing that few of the programs meant to help primarily minority children have been carried out, because appropriations are being squeezed for domestic security and defense.

Democrats may also challenge Republicans on less prominent, but still racially sensitive issues like mandatory set-asides for minorities in government contracts.

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have already pointed out that on the same day that the president criticized Mr. Lott, he was in Philadelphia signing an executive order to finance community outreach programs by religious groups. Some Democrats charge that initiative allows participating groups to discriminate in hiring.

"The Republicans were gaining ground as being sincerely concerned and credible on civil rights issues," said Abigail Thernstrom, a conservative member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, who supports school choice and abolishing racial preferences in education. "Now conservative programs and those of us who support them will go back to being automatically racially suspect."