NEW YORK -- Republicans have muted their internal dissent on the Iraq war -- certainly on their convention floor -- but even party stalwarts concede President Bush must offer reassurance that the enterprise is worth it and winnable.

For some moderate and libertarian Republicans unhappy about the war, their continued support for Bush is, in many ways, an "Anybody but Kerry" attitude mirroring the Democrats' "Anybody but Bush."

This helps explain why, despite mounting troop casualties and unrelenting difficulties in Iraq, the Bush campaign is expecting a strong Republican voter turnout Nov. 2.

Yet if Bush wins, Iraq will remain as the central issue defining his second term -- and the party's future.

"This is a very tight election, and no one wants to hurt the president's chances in the Republican Party, naturally," said Mike Collins, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "That doesn't mean there isn't a considerable amount of angst about Iraq. Face it, if Iraq hadn't happened, this election would be a slam dunk, to borrow a phrase from former CIA Director George Tenet.

"If it weren't for Iraq," Collins continued, "Bush would be 10 to 12 points ahead, and if you don't think Iraq is on the minds of Republican activists around the country, you haven't been talking to them."

Dan Lungren, the former GOP California attorney general now running for Congress from Sacramento, said he did not hear division over Iraq from Republican voters. "But what I do pick up is people want some reassurance that what we are doing in Iraq is bearing fruit," Lungren said, in the convention hall.

"Things seemed so clear and obvious when we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, and the challenge for the president and everybody now is to give people sufficient reason to sustain the effort," Lungren said, "and that's a lot more difficult job in any event."

California delegate Charles Marsala, an Atherton City Council member, said there were definitely reservations in the party and that he had shared those until he began researching Iraq's history. He now believes that Bush is on the right course but that patience is required.

"It's as if 100,000 Iraqis came into California and tried to control us," Marsala said. "It won't happen."

One of the few elected Republicans to split with Bush on Iraq retired from Congress this week.

Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, who left his post as a 25-year veteran of the House Foreign Relations Committee to head San Francisco's Asia Foundation, told constituents in a farewell letter, "all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that miliary action, especially without a broad and growing coalition. ... Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

Such outspoken criticism of the war is rare among Republicans. Polls show that differences between the two major parties on Iraq overwhelm any internal divisions on the issue. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 86 percent of Republicans thought invading Iraq was the right decision, while 10 percent said it was wrong. Those numbers reverse for Democrats, 70 percent of whom thought it was wrong as against 26 percent who thought it was the right thing to do. Among independents, 49 percent thought it was the wrong decision and 47 percent the right one.

"I wasn't completely in agreement going in, but it happened, and it's a war we have on our hands, and I hope it turns out that democracy will break out and things will be much better there, that women can take their veils off and have same rights we have here," said Robin Hoelscher, a Connecticut voter who intends to support Bush. "I haven't forgotten that we had 9/11, and I did feel there was a storm brewing in Iraq, ... (but) it's too soon to have a judgment."

Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the Pew poll showed that moderate and liberal Republicans were about twice as likely as conservatives to think the war was a mistake -- 15 percent versus 8 percent.

Yet while polls show support for the war holding up among Republicans, "that is not to say there is not a tremendous amount of anxiety about Iraq," Bowman said. "But that's different from asking about support for the president. "

Lungren said it was clear the war had hurt Bush's re-election prospects. "Of course -- he had 85 percent approval, and now he's at 50," Lungren said. "Yeah, it diminishes his support, no doubt about it."

However, Lungren said, "It's not division. The question (for Bush) among many Republicans is: Give me the stuff I can make an argument with. ... The problem is these are complex issues that cannot be made in 30 seconds, or put on a bumper sticker."

Former California Gov. Pete Wilson argued that Iraq was not hurting Bush more because voters failed to see a clear alternative in Democratic rival John Kerry.

"There are obviously concerns," Wilson said at the convention, "but what's happened is, the American people -- including those in blue or red states -- are asking what's really being offered other than criticism as an alternative to the performance of President Bush, and they're not finding an answer."

Patrick Basham, who analyzes U.S. elections for the libertarian Cato Institute, which opposed the invasion, said divisions among Republicans were disguised by two factors: conservative reluctance to publicly oppose their president when the country is at war, and dislike for Kerry.

"John Kerry frightens them a great deal," Basham said. "So those who either originally opposed the war or have come to think it a mistake and badly handled, still think we are better with the devil we know."

If Bush wins a second term, some Republicans think it will be despite the war, not because of it.

"There are a lot of Republicans who questioned our intervention in Iraq at the outset, and a lot more are beginning to question it in light of what's happened since, who do not equate this with the war on terror, especially in light of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction," Collins said. "I don't expect those differences to surface during the convention. I suspect they will surface Nov. 3, which is the day when the battle for the soul of the Republican Party begins."

© 2004 San Francisco Chronicle

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