GOP Is Caught Between Alliances (pushing Independents away to keep base)

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush19oct19,0,52072.story?track=tottext

NEWS ANALYSIS
GOP Is Caught Between Alliances
The party could push independents further away in efforts to steady its conservative base.
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer

October 19, 2005

WASHINGTON — As they navigate turbulent political seas, President Bush and congressional Republicans find themselves in a boat leaking from both ends.

Amid public discontent over the war in Iraq, high gas prices, the response to Hurricane Katrina and ethical controversies in Washington, approval ratings for Bush and the GOP-led Congress have tumbled to ominously low levels among independent and moderate voters.

But the White House and congressional leaders also are facing widespread dissatisfaction among conservative leaders antagonized by Bush's spending policies and his nomination of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court.

This two-front war complicates the challenge for the GOP as Bush tries to regain the initiative in Washington and the party prepares for the 2006 midterm elections.<snip<

[longship]

1. N.B., Repubs *cannot* win nat'l election without indeps.

nt

[papau]

2. True - but our media hides from the Independents the RW'ness of the GOP

We need to get the facts out -

but how we get past the corporate media is a problem.

[longship]

3. You are correct.

nt