On issues where there was disagreement within the Administration, Roberts's memos generally show him supporting the more conservative position, especially on matters of race and civil rights.
Younger songwriters were the focus of her 1998 album, "Way Back to Paradise," after which she retreated from the cutting edge to a safer, more conservative position and pursued a television career.
It can be argued, as David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, pointed out, that Hagel has taken a more conservative position than the Bush administration every time he has broken with it on a major issue.
"This is definitely a retrenchment and a fallback to a more conservative position," said one leading critic of the earlier stance, Dr. Robert Rosenfield, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Chicago.
The W.H.O.'s expert panel also concluded that live nasal-spray vaccines are safe for pregnant women, while federal health officials have taken a more conservative position, suggesting that pregnant women stick to the shots, which contain a killed virus.
But a spokesman for Merrill Lynch played down the significance of the change, saying, "This merely represents a refinement of existing policies so that we are taking a more conservative position than we had before".
Others urged Mr. Bush to stake out more conservative positions.
The Canadian Alliance has espoused more conservative positions on social and economic issues and uses sharper rhetoric.
Some lauded Mr. Bush's opposition to gay marriage and urged him to stake out more conservative positions.
And her campaign has sought to portray the Republican candidate as having more conservative positions and a more negative campaign style.
The table below lists the ratings for the nation's 30 Republican governors as calculated by this method; higher ratings reflect more conservative positions.
