Business Groups Tire of GOP Focus On Social Issues

For social conservatives, the turnabout is fair play. Evangelical Christians had grown leery of a Republican Party that courted their interests in election years, then turned its legislative attention to business and economic concerns as soon as the polls closed, said Gary L. Bauer, a former presidential candidate and president of American Values, a conservative religious advocacy group.

After the 2004 election, for example, some evangelical leaders groused that the administration had launched a public relations blitz for its Social Security restructuring, not a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

"Social conservatives expect their agenda to win out," Bauer said.

But the shift in emphasis may be taking a toll on Republican political support. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last week, 57 percent of the people polled said Bush had different priorities for the country from their own. Only 35 percent said he shared their priorities. The poll found the president's approval rating at 47 percent, but Congress's rating stood at just 33 percent. Among Republicans, approval of Congress's performance has dropped 11 percentage points since April.

"A big part of the base is pretty disappointed," Kudlow said. "Is this irreparably damaging anything? Probably not yet. But this has been a dreary political springtime."

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, conceded that the past few months have not been "hospitable to either party." But she said the Republican-led Congress this year has passed limits on class-action lawsuits and bankruptcy protections, both backed by business interests.

Samwick said the disenchantment of small-government conservatives has been building since the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which some saw as infringing on individual liberties, and the Medicare drug benefit, which created future government liabilities that exceed the entire projected Social Security shortfall.

"Some of these outcomes are really starting to alienate people who might be Republican because they are for limited government," Samwick said.

Since the election, Washington Republicans resemble the German military during World War I, opening new fronts before old battles are resolved, said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. and a former top GOP economist for the Senate Banking Committee and the Joint Economic Committee. One week it's Social Security, the next week it's Schiavo, then steroids, then judges, he said.

"It's an unbalanced domestic agenda," Silvia said. "If you're going to go to the wall on one particular issue, you're telling me you're going to sacrifice other issues, and history is full of stories of battles won at the cost of missing issues that have lost the war."