GOP Appears Ready to Move Beyond Bush

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Bush: 'McCain Speaks Straight From the Heart'

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush addressed the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, exciting a crowd of thousands gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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It was the Iraq war that undermined the president's once-commanding position with voters, in the view of many of his supporters. "If the Iraq war had gone well, Bush's influence on the GOP would rival Reagan's," said Pete Wehner, a former Bush White House aide. "I think that the Bush model, which was to remain a true and committed conservative on a series of issues but also reach out to others, was the right thing. But I just think everything got tainted by Iraq."

Democrats argue that Bush and Rove catered excessively to the party's conservative base and profoundly misread the mood of the electorate. "In some ways, you wonder whether 9/11 was a little bit of fool's gold for them," said Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist at the Center for American Progress. "They really kind of started to push a strongly conservative agenda with relatively little moderation. They were going against the grain of where the country was going."

Conservatives, by contrast, say Bush was not conservative enough, especially in combating spending proposals from Congress -- which led to great disaffection among the GOP base. Former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.) said Bush went awry by working too closely with Democrats in Washington on such issues as the No Child Left Behind bill. "I told him this was not the same place as Texas -- you can give them everything they want, and they will come away cussing you," Armey said. "And that is exactly what happened. Most conservatives feel he rejected us in favor of being with Teddy Kennedy."

Liberals and conservatives agree that second-term fiascos such as the response to Hurricane Katrina have had a cumulative effect. "Strategizing and political approaches are all well and good, but in the end, it's performance that matters," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "And the Bush administration has not succeeded, from the public's point of view."

The man Bush once described as the "architect" of his political success has little use for this kind of analysis. "There was a systematic effort by liberal opponents of this administration to say two things: that he lied about the war and that he was incompetent. Neither is correct," Rove said. "He was a successful president because he tackled big issues, bigger than his predecessor was willing to take on. In some he succeeded and in some he did not, but always he led."

Polling director Jon Cohen and staff researcher Madonna Lebling in Washington contributed to this report.