GOP Leadership Race Seen as Harbinger

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) (Joe Raedle - Getty Images)

The longer Bush has been in office, the greater the tension between the White House and many House conservatives aligned with the Republican Study Committee (RSC). They believe the party has lost its way and point to several of Bush's signature achievements, among them the No Child Left Behind education law and the measure providing prescription drug benefits to Medicare recipients, as inimical to the conservative principle of limited government.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who with Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) has urged his colleagues to consider major leadership changes next month, said House Republicans approved some of those bills in part to help Bush win reelection in 2004. "That concern no longer exists," Flake said. "The president is no longer running for reelection."

But the divisions the new House leaders must attempt to reconcile are not simply Bush's vs. the House's political interests. The disagreements pit what many Republicans see as the importance of adhering to bedrock conservative principles, particularly on the size and scope of government, against what others say is needed to maintain or expand the party's electoral appeal.

"No policy disagreement more captures that than the disagreement over the prescription drug bill," said David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University. "A lot in the RSC think it is bad in principle and bad in practice. But others thought it was essential to maintain majority status, which for the other part of the party is the highest thing of value."

There will be competing views of exactly what the House needs at this moment. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, argues for a leader who can develop a close relationship with committee chairmen to ensure a steady flow of legislation to the floor "so that members think they've gotten their work done and the country sees the agenda is getting accomplished."

Cole argued for leadership that eventually can reach across the aisle more successfully than either Gingrich or DeLay to attract Democratic support for legislation, although he said he sees no prospect of that this year.

Shadegg has been critical of what he said is the failure by Blunt or Boehner to be more aggressive in putting forth a plan for a bolder conservative agenda.

Whatever course the new leadership takes could have a significant effect on the party. If the party's new leaders in the House choose the wrong path, they could jeopardize their majority in the coming midterm elections. Others in the party -- the 2008 presidential candidates, governors, senators -- will distance themselves, as Bush did at times when he ran for president in 2000. If House leaders do the opposite, they could reassert themselves at the heart of the conservative movement just as Bush's presidency is nearing its end.

"If they approach this moment of crisis, if you will, as a challenge to reclaim the reform mantle," Weber said, GOP legislators can save themselves and "shape the 2008 presidential campaign, and that's tremendously important."