Aliens program costs Bush

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Jim Nixon, a retired Army officer and staunch conservative, has voted Republican in every presidential race since Dwight D. Eisenhower topped the ticket.

But not this time. "I've been a lifetime Republican, but that's in the past. No more," Mr. Nixon said.

Like a small but significant cluster of lifelong Republicans, the Tucson, Ariz., resident plans to make a statement by breaking with the Republican Party this year. The reason: He's furious over President Bush's proposal to grant resident status to illegal immigrants, known by critics as his amnesty program.

Not that Mr. Nixon plans to vote for the Democratic candidate, John Kerry.

"Kerry's no good, and Bush isn't good, either," he said. "I'm going to write in a candidate, [Rep.] Tom Tancredo [Colorado Republican]. Because of his stand on immigration."

Call them the anti-Bush Republicans: stalwart conservatives and formerly active Republicans whose anger over the party's tolerance of illegal immigration is prompting them to throw their votes behind write-in candidates, third-party candidates -- or no candidate at all.

"Right now, there are 30,000 people on our e-mail lists who are planning to write in Tom Tancredo," said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "There's a real grass-roots, pitchfork movement on this. This administration made a gross political miscalculation with its pandering to its cheap-labor constituency."

But will it make a difference in November? Some analysts predict the issue could chip away enough votes from the Bush ticket to turn the tide in states like Arizona and Florida, where the candidates are locked in a dead heat and the immigration issue resonates with voters.

That may be why the White House has remained mum on the issue since Mr. Bush announced his guest-worker proposal in January. "They're worried about their base, they're worried about Tancredo, and they're worried about Republicans staying home," Mr. Stein said.

The anti-Bush Republicans didn't switch allegiances immediately. Terry Anderson, a conservative Los Angeles radio talk-show host who focuses on immigration issues, said frustration with the party's acceptance of the status quo -- in which hundreds of thousands of illegals enter the country each year -- has only recently reached the boiling point.