Seeking to Heal Breach With His Core Supporters

Although Bush won't face voters again, presidents with approval ratings this low have often seen their party lose seats in congressional midterm elections.

Bush has been losing ground on two fronts.

New ABC/Washington Post and CNN/USA Today/Gallup surveys show his approval ratings among independents falling to 35%.

But with the Miers' nomination sparking an intense backlash among conservatives, Bush's support among Republicans fell to 80% or less in the surveys, well below the levels that helped generate huge GOP turnouts in the 2002 and 2004 elections.

Almost all observers agree that the Alito pick signaled that Bush was most focused on healing the breach with his core supporters.

"If anything came out of [the Miers controversy], it was a reminder to the White House that Washington is about fighting -- and that it is much better to fight with your opponents than with your friends," said social conservative activist Gary L. Bauer.

Almost instantly after the president's announcement, the two parties lined up like football squads that couldn't wait to begin banging heads.

Last week, Concerned Women for America, a leading social conservative group, helped sink Miers' nomination by urging her withdrawal. But less than an hour after Bush introduced Alito and his family, the group issued a statement endorsing the nominee as "eminently qualified." Other conservatives followed suit.

Conversely, liberal groups People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice, which waited for weeks before formally opposing Roberts, issued statements opposing Alito on Monday morning. People for the American Way launched a "Stop Alito" website.

Ralph G. Neas, the group's president, said the effort against Alito would be "totally different" from the Roberts fight. Roberts' limited experience as a judge, he noted, forced opponents to research his record in the executive branch for weeks before mobilizing full-scale resistance to him. Alito's 15-year record on the federal bench will allow opponents to frame the choice much more quickly, Neas said.

One clear difference between Alito and Roberts is the intervening experience of Miers' failed nomination, said Andrew J. Taylor, a North Carolina State University political scientist.

By picking Alito after Miers withdrew under fire from the right, Bush increased his vulnerability to charges that the choice was a "capitulation" to conservatives, Taylor said. And that, he added, could make it easier for Democrats to argue that "the president is not governing for the mainstream."