The Republican Party

REPUBLICAN PARTY (RNC) - Republicans hold the big job in DC: the Presidency. President George W. Bush -- regardless of whoich party holds control on Capitol Hill -- has the ability to largely keep Congress in check with his veto power. The GOP also held control of the US House from the Gingrich/Contract with Amer
ica/anti-Clinton election sweep of 1994 until they were dumped from power in 2006 in a backlash to the Iraq War, the anti-Bush vote and concerns about insider corruption problems. The GOP also hold several key Governorships (including TX, CA, GA, MN and FL), and narrowly held majority status in the US Senate in 1995-2001 and 2003-07. In the aftermatch of the 2006 races, watch for the normal finger-pointing and reorganizing between different ideological camps within the party as they gear up for the 2008 White House race. Leading Republicans fall into several different ideological factions: traditional conservatives (President George W. Bush, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist, Rick Santorum and the Club for Growth), the Religious Right (Sam Brownback, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies and the Christian Coalition), the rapidly dwindling old Nixon/Rockefeller "centrist" or "moderate" wing (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rob Simmons, Christie Whitman and the Republican Main Street Partnership), libertarians (Ron Paul and the Republican Liberty Caucus), and a "paleo-conservative" wing that backs strict anti-immigration controls (Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan)