No, it was the Republican congress's failure to do anything except generate pork for their districts and money for their campaigns that alienated both the conservatives and the independents. They talked fiscal responsibility when it came to social programs but if you could pave it or build a bridge to it and it was in their district, they paid for it. They even built the bridge to "nowhere". Immigration was the number one issue beside the war and what did they do, authorize building a fence that only covered a small portion of the border and then failed to fund it because they werent serious about building it. They were all sympolism over substance. Oh heck all we got to do to keep the Evangelicals is pass a meaningless bill on partial birth abortion that the courts will throw out, then do some bills against the gays and flag burners and they will come out and vote for us in droves. They are almost as dumb as those traditional conservatives that we sold the tax cuts to that ran out almost as soon as they were fully implemented. They wont notice.