Now the McCain campaign wants to remake it from a Bush party to a McCain party.
If Vice President Al Gore were the Democratic Party's candidate and Texas Gov. George W. Bush were the Republican party's candidate, as of today, do you lean more toward Gore, the Democrat or Bush, the Republican?
Having largely missed out on Mr Bush's party, they are facing less of a hangover now.
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Meanwhile, Mr Bush keeps his party (and the rest of the country) in suspense.
With Congress almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, Mr Bush joked with party leaders that he might have to resort to some arm-twisting.
After a state dinner, Bush and his party were bundled back onto Air Force One and shunted off to the president's next stop, Thailand.
The ascendancy of state Republicans is most noticeable in the number of congressmen who have put their faith in Mr Bush as the party's presidential candidate.
Having dug itself in around Mr Bush, his party is now less well placed than it was to win back the swing voters it will need in November.
Should the Bush Administration become party to this enterprise -- even on a unilateral, ostensibly trade-related basis -- it would abdicate its leadership role and betray the public trust.
Not surprisingly, Bush's party is deeply unpopular.
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In the primaries, Mr Bush's popularity with the party faithful has already paid off: unlike his father in 1992, who was mauled by a conservative rebellion led by Pat Buchanan, this Bush faces no challenge for his party's nomination.
Mr Bush's Republican party had hoped to keep the economy off the election agenda.
Mr Bush is still the party's front-runner, and still stands a fair chance in November.
Mr Bush's own party is growing unsettled by the continuing drumbeat of violence in Iraq.
This coherence does not guarantee that Mr Bush will win his party's nomination, though it must make that outcome more likely.
Since Mr Bush's Republican Party now controls both houses of Congress, he might have expected his budgetary plans to sail through without serious challenge.
Yet it is hard to see how anyone will be able to deny that politically the war has been disastrous for Bush and the Republican Party.
Bush and his Republican Party also have been trying to reach out to Hispanic voters in the United States, many of whom have ties to Mexico.
This is the second midterm election for Bush, and the party of the occupant of the White House historically loses congressional seats in the middle of that president's second term.
So with Roll Call, a congressional newspaper (and a sister publication of The Economist), saying that America in 2006 is looking like America in 1994, Mr Bush's Republican party should take notice.
This second of three contests between Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican Party nominee for the White House, and Democratic Vice President Al Gore, closely mirrored the first-ever debate arranged by the commission, which took place on Sept. 25, 1988, in Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University.
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And McCain's challenge is to distance himself from Bush's failures while holding onto the party's conservative core that still believes in Bush.
" A spokesman for the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party called the Bush decision "a gross mistake.
That was 17, 000 more than George W. Bush received from the Republican Party on the same day.
When Buchanan, who has hinted at leaving the GOP, is included as a third-party contender, Bush's lead decreased.
And if Bush carries, pulls the party down, you can see Democrats winning where they normally would not have.
George Bush inspires affection within his party, and that buoys him up when he hits a rough patch politically.
It probably reflects a perception that the Republican Party under George Bush has subverted many of those ideals for ideology and political gain.
Though the Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress, unfortunately for Mr Bush, many on his party's benches also have doubts about the tax cut.
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