The Breakaway Republicans

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White House officials, recognizing the likelihood that Republicans on Capitol Hill will go their own way, say they have designed an agenda that relies on Congress for very little in this election year. Instead, they say, the President will deploy his bully pulpit for such issues as overhauling the entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid--that eat up half the budget and could balloon as baby boomers retire. By judiciously asserting his influence, Bush believes he can set "an agenda that our party and, one would hope, the country can unite behind," White House communications director Nicolle Wallace said. But the flap over port security, coming after the controversy over Vice President Dick Cheney's handling of his accidental shooting of a hunting companion, shows that the White House will have to sharpen its game to regain even that much ground. An Administration official said Bush's aides realize that they'll be taking more Republican shots "every year that we're closer to being done." But in the end, the wounds that hurt the most may be the ones that are self-inflicted.