Conservative May Break Color Jinx : Politics: A Connecticut land developer could be the first black Republican elected to the House of Representatives since 1928.

WATERBURY, Conn. — Gary Franks is just the type of person you would expect to run for Congress: high school basketball star, Yale graduate, real estate developer and city alderman.

He is also black and a Republican--a combination unseen in the House of Representatives in more than 50 years.

Franks is one of three black Republicans trying to break the jinx this year. The others are former Cincinnati Councilman J. Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio’s open 1st District, and Louisville businessman Al Brown, who is challenging Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli in Kentucky’s 3rd District.

“Basically, the whole Republican philosophy is self-help,” said Franks, 37. It worked for his family, he said, and is far preferable to depending on welfare or other government programs.

Franks is the youngest son of a mill worker who moved from North Carolina to work in Waterbury’s brass factories. His mother is a lifelong Republican, and he speaks often of his family in explaining his views on self-sufficiency.

“My father came here about 55 years ago from North Carolina,” Franks said. “He had a sixth-grade education--barely could read, barely could write. And my parents raised six children. I have three sisters who hold doctorate degrees today.”

The last black Republican in the House was Oscar de Priest of Chicago, who was elected in the Herbert Hoover landslide of 1928 and served three terms.

The predominantly working-class district Franks hopes to represent is just 4% black, and he is up against a well-known Democrat, former congressman and TV newsman Toby Moffett.

But no one is discounting Franks, who has won respect from Democrats and Republicans alike during his three terms as an alderman.

Of the three black Republicans running for Congress this year, Franks is the only one seeking a seat that has been held by a Republican during the 1980s. The incumbent, Rep. John Rowland, is running for governor.

Rowland’s coattails are expected to help Franks, as is Franks’ strong base in Waterbury and support from the national party organization.

The voters of Connecticut’s 5th District, a mixture of small towns, suburbs and old industrial cities, couldn’t have a clearer choice.

Franks is a fiscal conservative who preaches the virtues of hard work and the evils of federal taxation. He favors a amending the Constitution to ban flag-burning and supports a woman’s right to choose abortion.

“I believe in less government,” he said recently. “I believe that we don’t have to tax and spend constantly to maintain our society.”

Moffett, 46, went to Congress as one of Ralph Nader’s Raiders with the Watergate class of 1974 and served four terms in the House. He ran for U. S. Senate in 1982 and for governor in 1986, but lost both races.

Moffett took a job as a television anchorman in Hartford after his 1986 defeat. When he moved into the 5th District to run for Rowland’s seat, he immediately became the front-runner, although opponents labeled him a carpetbagger.

“When I see Mr. Moffett, I think of the ‘70s,” said Franks. “You think of Jimmy Carter. You think of interest rates at 21 1/2%. You think of an unemployment rate of over 7%.”

Jay Marlin, Moffett’s campaign manager, tries to turn the tables by likening Franks’ economic ideas to those of the Ronald Reagan Administration.

“If he wants to take credit for the Reagan years, he can take credit for a tax cut for the wealthy that hurt the middle class, for the greatest deficits in history, and for the savings and loan crisis,” Marlin said.

That Franks won the GOP nomination is considered a small miracle in Waterbury. He needed nine ballots at the party’s convention in July to get its endorsement. On the first six ballots, he finished dead last.

But Republican strategists say Franks has a good chance of beating the better-known Moffett in a district of about 97,000 registered Democrats, 83,000 Republicans and 107,000 unaffiliated voters.

“From a purely political point of view, he’s from the right place--Waterbury,” said John Mastropietro, who is managing Rowland’s campaign for governor. “It’s extraordinarily difficult for a Democrat to win the district without winning Waterbury.”