Many observers agree with Bauer that the federal courts' refusal to order the reconnection of Schiavo's feeding tube probably will engage social conservatives more deeply in the judicial battle, even though Republican-appointed judges provided critical support for the key decisions in the case.
Conversely, Senate Democrats and their allies now may be more likely to cite the Schiavo case to support their effort to block some of Bush's most conservative appointments.
"I think it has tremendously strengthened the idea that you need an independent judiciary," said Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way.
The case's longer-term political impact may pivot on whether some voters are antagonized by the influence of religious conservatives within the GOP that was demonstrated by the Schiavo case.
The controversy aggravated long-standing but recently dormant tensions inside the Republican party.
Libertarian conservatives, such as Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, portrayed Washington's intervention as a violation of Republican efforts to reduce the size and reach of the federal government.
The case also reinforced the concerns of GOP social moderates that the party has identified too closely with the agenda of religious conservatives on a broad range of issues, from a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage to the imposition of strict limits on public support for embryonic stem cell research.
The most pointed critique along these lines came from John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri who served as Bush's U.N. ambassador during his first term. In a New York Times op-ed piece this week, Danforth charged that with initiatives such as the Schiavo legislation, "Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians."
Yet given the central role that evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives play in the GOP coalition, many experts doubt that the concerns expressed by Danforth and others would have much impact.
A post-election survey by the University of Akron found that Bush received 40% of his vote in November from evangelical Protestants; traditionalist Catholics, who often hold conservative views similar to evangelicals on political issues, provided another 8%. By contrast, Bush received about 25% of his vote from mainline Protestants, the party's historic base, who tend to take more moderate positions on social issues.
"Evangelicals and other traditional Christians are too big a piece of the GOP base to ignore," said John C. Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who specializes in religion and politics.
