According to Washington Post:
Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.
Anxiety over President Bush's Iraq policy, internal clashes over such divisive issues as immigration, and rising complaints that the party has abandoned conservative principles on spending restraint have all hobbled the effort to devise an election-year message, said several lawmakers involved in the effort.
While it is a Republican refrain that Democrats criticize Bush but have no positive vision, for now the governing party also has no national platform around which lawmakers are prepared to rally.
Every effort so far to produce such a platform has stumbled.
Interesting, because usually it is the Democrats who are portrayed as being in disarray. Now everybody gets to be in disarray. So the question is, what will the wingnuts offer to get their base mobilized so that they miraculously win again in November? Could it be wedge issues? You know, stuff like banning same-sex marriage and women outside kitchens and bedrooms. Yes:
In the absence of a positive national message, Republicans also hope to use long-standing "wedge issues" to galvanize their own base and try to put Democrats on record with unpopular votes. Congressional leaders, for instance, plan to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
The meme about Bush being a big spender on domestic issues is also going strong. Too bad that it's an incorrect one. He is spending money, true, but it's in Iraq, not at home. At home poor people get preventive cancer screening cut. The Republicans would like to see more those types of savings, I guess.