Rumbling on the hard-line right

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President Bush is beginning to anger certain hard-line conservatives, particularly over fiscal issues, the way his father did in the year before he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992.

It's not clear how deep the dissatisfaction goes, and whether it will translate to damage at the polls in November.

"I'm hearing a lot of anger," says Richard Viguerie, the guru of conservative political direct mail. "I'm beginning, for the first time, [to hear] people talk about 'it would not be the worst thing in the world if Howard Dean were president,' because the size of government would stay still rather than increase 50 percent under a second Bush administration."

Lee Newcom, president of the United Republican Fund of Illinois, says the spending issues have troubled conservatives in his state, but it's not costing Mr. Bush votes.

"I see no erosion at all in the president's support, and that is largely because of the president's conduct of the war and the belief in the very strong character of President Bush," he says.

Pat Buchanan, whose challenge of President George Bush in 1992 is credited by some conservatives as leading to the Clinton presidency, says that if it weren't for the ongoing war the current president would be facing a primary challenge.

"President Bush is an active war leader, which gives him a measure of immunity from conservative defections," says Mr. Buchanan. "But his spending is making his father look like Barry Goldwater, and my view is that domestic social spending is exploding. He's not vetoed a single bill, he has gone south on affirmative action. And I think he's gone AWOL on social and cultural issues."

In 1992, Mr. Bush's father angered conservatives by breaking his famous "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes, by continuing to raise spending and by assuming that conservatives would vote for him rather than flee the party. Now, certain conservatives say they see a similar situation.

"It reminds me of 1991, 1992 all over again," Mr. Viguerie says.