GOP’s Unified Front Is Reduced to a Veneer

In the disciplined world of George W. Bush’s presidency, Republicans for years have shunned open criticism of the White House, fearful of a call to the woodshed from an administration that prizes loyalty.

So it was a striking departure when Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania -- a high-ranking party official and a stalwart Bush ally -- recently lambasted the administration’s handling of this year’s Social Security debate. It was even more striking that his office e-mailed the news far and wide with a subject line boasting: “Santorum takes Bush to task over Social Security strategy.”

That was an emblem of the wobbly state of what was a cornerstone of Bush’s first-term accomplishments: the confident, nearly lock-step unity of his party in Congress.

Now, every day seems to bring a new brawl among Republicans as divisions between factions proliferate.

A revolt by hard-line conservatives last week helped torpedo the selection of a more moderate Republican to temporarily replace indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) as majority leader. A power struggle over a long-term successor is likely to follow.

The White House is battling the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee over his effort to expand Medicaid for hurricane victims. Moderate Republicans recently demanded a White House meeting to protest Bush’s decision to relax wage standards on hurricane reconstruction projects.

“It’s disappointing that they aren’t coming together,” said Eddie Mahe, a political consultant and former GOP official.

Last week’s confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the Supreme Court gave Republicans a welcome dose of triumphant unity. But that, and the impending nomination of another Supreme Court justice, will do little to help Bush refocus his legislative agenda and bring Republicans in line.

GOP divisions have been exacerbated by uncertainty about Bush’s second-term goals, now that his stated agenda of overhauling Social Security, the tax code and immigration law have been eclipsed by the demands of responding to Hurricane Katrina.

“Even if you wanted to go back to business as usual, we’re going to be in post-Katrina politics for a while,” said Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster. “We are in a different era, and it’s going to be hard not to have an entirely different set of conversations.”

A source close to the White House said that senior Bush aides were still trying to sort out what their game plan would be once they got beyond the period where the hurricane cleanup dominated their attention.

“I don’t think the White House feels like you can have a meaningful conversation about the second-term agenda until you essentially manage your way out of these next couple months,” said a Republican lobbyist who did not want to be identified because he was recounting private conversations with Bush officials.

Still, Bush has been acting as if his agenda will be unchanged after the hurricane response is sorted out, as he has continued to call for an overhaul of Social Security and for making his tax cuts permanent.

It is not uncommon for a president to lose control of his party and have more modest legislative ambitions in his second term. But Bush, after his 2004 reelection, made a point of saying he did not want his presidency to lapse into lethargy. Just days after his reelection, he laid out a concise but ambitious agenda.

“I’ve earned capital in this election, and I’m going to spend it for what I told the people I’d spend it on, which is ... Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror,” Bush said.

Bush and a disciplined GOP Congress racked up many legislative accomplishments in the first six months of his second term, including an overhaul of the bankruptcy code, limits on class-action lawsuits, a new energy policy, a big highway bill and a major trade agreement. Congress adjourned for its August recess on a high note, feeling that lawmakers had bolstered the GOP image as a can-do, competent party that could govern.

That image took a beating this summer as gas prices soared, violence continued in Iraq and the government seemed slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina.

The results were not pretty. A recent survey by Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies found that people who said Bush was good at handling a crisis dropped from 56% in January to 41% in September.

The centrifugal forces within the party intensified as Bush’s ratings sank. Republicans freely joined criticism of the administration’s initial response to Katrina. They now seem emboldened to speak their minds on other issues, as well.

At a recent private meeting of Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), who as chairman of the House GOP campaign committee is a top political strategist, recommended shelving the president’s Social Security overhaul plan, because voting on it was “potentially dangerous to vulnerable incumbents,” according to a source familiar with the meeting.

Santorum, one of the strongest advocates of Bush’s proposal to overhaul Social Security, recently told a reporter that the administration had botched the effort to promote the plan to the public by taking too long to begin the campaign.

“We were just playing catch-up the whole time, and that was the fundamental error,” said Santorum, who is facing a tough reelection fight in 2006 in a swing state where Bush is not very popular.

The debate over how to pay for the Katrina cleanup has sparked especially bitter divisions among Republicans, challenging the ability of Bush and GOP leaders to hold the party’s factions together.

When conservative House Republicans recently proposed more than $500 billion in spending cuts to offset Katrina-related costs, GOP leaders were furious that they had gone public with proposals to slash two of their prized legislative accomplishments -- a big highway bill and the expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs.

In a tense, closed-door meeting with the chairman of the conservative group, GOP leaders sent a clear message, according to a source at the meeting: “There’s no way we can delay the prescription drug benefit or cut the highway bill.”

The hurricane response effort also has put the White House at odds with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who is usually a reliable Bush ally. Grassley and another senior Senate Republican, Trent Lott (R-Miss.), are pushing a bill that would expand Medicaid coverage in the states hit by Katrina. The administration and many conservative Republicans oppose the bill as too costly. An irate Grassley last week warned that White House opposition to the Medicaid bill could undermine support for another budget measure that is a top administration priority.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) got caught in the crossfire between conservative and moderate factions of the party last week when word spread that he was going to appoint Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) to be DeLay’s temporary successor as majority leader. Conservative members objected, saying he was not conservative enough on issues such as stem cell research and immigration. Hastert named Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to the post instead.

The White House faced another party split when it decided this month to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act’s wage standards in federal contracts to rebuild hurricane-ravaged areas. That meant that federal contractors would not have to pay workers the “prevailing wage,” a level usually linked to local union contracts. The decision delighted conservative Republicans who have long sought repeal of the wage standard.

But it was bad news to moderate Republicans from swing districts with a heavy presence of organized labor. Thirty-seven House Republicans signed a letter to Bush objecting to the decision on wages. Two ringleaders, Reps. Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio and Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey, met with GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman and White House political advisor Karl Rove to deliver the complaint in person.

“Everybody is working real hard to say we’re a unified Republican conference, but what you don’t want is for moderates to feel we’re getting run over,” LaTourette said. He said Rove’s response was: “Message received.”