There’s an empty space in the Re­pub­lic­an Party where com­pas­sion­ate con­ser­vat­ism used to be, and an op­por­tun­ity for a pres­id­en­tial pro­spect to step in­to the breach.

The dis­ap­pear­ance of that trade­mark George W. Bush brand from Wash­ing­ton has nev­er been more ap­par­ent. The Re­pub­lic­an House has gone from stalling im­mig­ra­tion re­form and cut­ting food stamps to pre­cip­it­at­ing a gov­ern­ment shut­down by de­mand­ing the re­peal of the health law that is the corner­stone of Pres­id­ent Obama’s leg­acy. The shut­down is threat­en­ing nu­tri­tion pro­grams, can­cer treat­ment, salar­ies, jobs, and much more.

It’s one bad hand among sev­er­al the GOP has dealt it­self.

“We’re not fin­ished com­mit­ting sui­cide here,” said Re­pub­lic­an strategist John Weaver, a vet­er­an of the Mc­Cain and Hunts­man cam­paigns. “We also have the op­por­tun­ity to kill im­mig­ra­tion re­form, and the odds are that we will do that, just to make sure we’re the angry-white-man party.” He says the party may need a George McGov­ern-sized de­feat with a can­did­ate like Ted Cruz be­fore it chooses an­oth­er path.

Mark McKin­non, a former Bush strategist, is hop­ing for a more im­me­di­ate course cor­rec­tion. “Now that the coun­try has seen what com­pas­sion­less con­ser­vat­ives have wrought,” he says, “per­haps the GOP will start to re­gain a hun­ger for com­pas­sion­ate con­ser­vat­ives.”

Re­pub­lic­ans are do­ing noth­ing so far to cut in­to Obama’s ad­vant­age on is­sues like who people trust more to help fam­il­ies and handle health care, and who they blame more for Wash­ing­ton grid­lock. Gal­lup his­tor­ic­al data sug­gest the GOP won’t suf­fer long-term dam­age as a res­ult of the shut­down, but the con­text for this one is dif­fer­ent: It is hap­pen­ing in a drag­ging eco­nomy, it is com­ing amid oth­er un­pop­u­lar stands, and it could be fol­lowed — or ac­com­pan­ied — by a debt-ceil­ing dis­aster.

Dick Armey, the former House Re­pub­lic­an lead­er, sees de­feat loom­ing on both the PR and policy fronts. “I don’t know that I have ever seen Re­pub­lic­ans gain one inch of ground to­wards their stated ob­ject­ive by pre­cip­it­at­ing a gov­ern­ment shut­down,” he said.

In fact, by link­ing Obama­care to fund­ing the gov­ern­ment, Re­pub­lic­ans may have in­ad­vert­ently raised pub­lic aware­ness of the law and boos­ted traffic on the new in­sur­ance mar­ket­places. Now they are point­ing out glitches due in part to high volume — un­der­cut­ting their cus­tom­ary in­sist­ence that Amer­ic­ans don’t want the law. “We shouldn’t be ad­vert­ising the fact that the web­site was over­sub­scribed. That’s not ex­actly a strong talk­ing point for our side,” John Fee­hery, a former House GOP lead­er­ship aide, says with a wry laugh.

Alarm­ist con­ser­vat­ive rhet­or­ic on Obama­care (so­cial­ist, dan­ger­ous, an ex­ist­en­tial eco­nom­ic threat, and a fail­ure be­fore it starts) is an­oth­er po­ten­tial land mine. What are the chances that, as people ex­per­i­ence the law firsthand, they’ll look at that rhet­or­ic and won­der what the heck Re­pub­lic­ans were talk­ing about? “At least 50-50. Prob­ably high­er,” says Ron Haskins, a so­cial policy ex­pert at the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion and a former seni­or GOP aide on Cap­it­ol Hill. He says he’s been wor­ried about the dir­ec­tion of his party for months. “Every­day I wake up and it’s something new,” he says.

There are plenty of Re­pub­lic­ans out­side Con­gress who could serve as coun­ter­weights to the harsh im­age fueled by de­vel­op­ments on Cap­it­ol Hill, and even a few in­side. But eld­er states­men like John Mc­Cain and Bob Dole aren’t be­ing heeded, and re­ac­tions by people ey­ing the White House have ranged from ob­lique to MIA.

New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie, run­ning for reelec­tion this year and a lead­ing 2016 pro­spect, usu­ally goes the route of “every­one’s to blame.” But he did re­lease a cam­paign ad this week — ” Bi­par­tis­an” — that could be read as a re­buke of House and Sen­ate con­ser­vat­ives who would rather get nowhere than settle for less than 100 per­cent. “I say what I be­lieve. But I also know that my job is to get things done for the people of the state,” Christie says in the ad. Then, after cit­ing tax cuts, spend­ing cuts, im­prov­ing edu­ca­tion, and re­forms of ten­ure, pen­sions and be­ne­fits, he con­cludes: “Everything we’ve done has been a bi­par­tis­an ac­com­plish­ment. See, I think as long as you stick to your prin­ciples, com­prom­ise isn’t a dirty word.”

Bey­ond Christie, cred­ible counter-mes­sen­gers in­clude Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Nevada Gov. Bri­an San­dov­al, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, and former Flor­ida Gov. Jeb Bush. But none of them are likely to step for­ward, in­di­vidu­ally or as a group, un­less and un­til they de­cide to run. And at that point, Fee­hery pre­dicts, the thrust will be tough love for wel­fare and food-stamp re­cip­i­ents and no love for Wash­ing­ton. In oth­er words, the out­siders will run hard against gen­er­al dys­func­tion, but not against the tea party or any oth­er fac­tion. That would be polit­ic­al sui­cide in a primary pro­cess dom­in­ated by grass­roots con­ser­vat­ives.