GOP Losses Could Spark Partisan Warfare

Audience members applaud as President Bush speaks at a National Republican Senatorial Committee Reception, a fund raising event, in Washington, Friday, Oct. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

"All of our numbers look pretty bad and there's no question that there's a jet stream in our face," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Furthermore, some of Bush's fighting in the trenches is likely to be with fellow Republicans as they seek to find a new standard bearer for 2008 _ and distance themselves from an unpopular war, the unpopular president who waged it, and congressional scandals that include inappropriate e-mails to House pages from ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.

"There's no question that the Republican coalition is stressed over the way Washington has been handling fiscal matters, the Foley affair, the Iraq war," said GOP consultant Scott Reed. "All of these are coming together at the same time."

Already, Republicans are showing divisions on Iraq policy. Fresh skepticism has come from Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner of Virginia, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a longtime Bush family loyalist.

If Republicans lose their majorities, it will be that much harder for Bush to hold together already splintering GOP cohesion on Iraq.

Bush has been quoted by journalist Bob Woodward as saying, "I'll stay in Iraq even if the only support I have left is from my wife and my dog." A Democratic takeover and Republican defections could make that day seem closer.

While the Senate has been difficult for Bush, even with GOP control, the House for most of his presidency has delivered for him. That could be about to change.

The White House traditionally loses seats in midterm congressional races. The most recent exception was 2002, when Bush's party picked up seats.

Many Democrats see the upcoming elections as a mirror image of 1994, with the parties reversed.

Then, Republicans rallied behind firebrand Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, announced a "Contract with America," and stormed to victory, seizing both House and Senate from Democrats.

It was a huge blow to Clinton, made worse by the lavish and almost-presidential reception Gingrich received around Washington as he was inaugurated as House speaker.

Doug Schoen, Clinton's pollster then, said those times were bleak, including Clinton's baleful insistence to reporters in early 1995 that "the president is relevant."