By Bob Benenson, CQ Staff

There are plenty of numerical measures of the Republican Party’s declining fortunes since the 2004 national convention in New York City, which renominated President Bush and sent him to what turned into a troubled-plagued second term in the White House.

There is the steep decline in approval ratings for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney . There are all those lost seats that in 2006 and since have cost the GOP its majorities in the Senate, the House, governors’ offices and several state legislative chambers. Most recently, there was the generic poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for the Associated Press from July 31 to Aug. 4, which found 53 percent of respondents want the Democrats to control Congress, compared to only 35 percent who want the Republicans in charge.

But as we prepare to head out in a couple of weeks for the back-to-back Democratic convention in Denver and Republican convention in St. Paul, another way of illustrating the GOP’s hard and fast slide emerges. A look at the list of featured speakers at the 2004 Republican convention is itself a graphic illustration of why just four years ago seems like the good old days to so many Republican loyalists.

The roster is a virtual meteor shower of Republicans stars who have fallen within this one presidential election cycle.

Let’s start with the Monday opening day session, kicked off by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois in his role of permanent chairman of the convention. His re-election in November 2004 would extend his time as Speaker to eight years, the longest tenure for a Republican in the nation’s history. But the GOP’s loss of 30 seats and their majority in the 2006 elections relegated Hastert to the back benches and prompted him to resign his seat last November. Symbolically, a Democrat won the March special election to take over his Republican-leaning district.

Then there was a welcoming address by Michael Bloomberg — the moderate Republican mayor of heavily Democratic New York City who would soon quit the Republican Party over policy differences and become an independent.

Next up was his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani. Still riding a wave of affection for the stalwart way in which he boosted public morale following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on his city in 2001, Giuliani would enter the contest for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and had a lead in early polls... until the actual campaign got under way. His sometimes abrasive personality, stormy personal life and drumbeat reminders of 9/11 in virtually every public appearance quickly wore thin, and he was knocked out of the race by the end of January.

One of the image problems Giuliani had to deal with this year was his close relationship with Bernard Kerik, his former police commissioner and business partner who was tarnished by ethics and legal allegations after Bush, at Giuliani’s suggestion, nominated him in December 2004 to head the Homeland Security Department. And yes, Kerik was a 2004 convention speaker too, talking about 9/11, as the GOP made a hefty effort to hail Bush’s assertive military response to that calamity.

Others in the Monday program who have since hit hard times included Virginia Sen. George Allen, then touted as a possible darling of conservative Republicans for the 2008 White House race, until his own gaffes and an unexpected strong challenge from Democrat Jim Webb in his 2006 campaign sent him to the sidelines. There also was Ohio Republican Gov. Bob Taft, whose administration’s subsequent ethics scandals — including his own plea of no contest to charges of failing to report gifts — helped Democrats take over his office, a Senate seat and a House seat in Ohio in the 2006 elections.

One Monday night speaker who escape the furies of the Republican downfall, at least so far, was Arizona Sen. John McCain , who gave a glowing endorsement of ex-rival Bush. That speech helped McCain mend some fences with Republican regulars with whom he’d had a touchy relationship since he challenged Bush for the 2000 GOP nomination, and may have helped lay the groundwork for his successful bid for the 2008 top spot.

Whether that 2004 speech will help or hurt McCain in this year’s general election remains to be seen. Although he asserts that he was frequently critical of Bush’s handling of the Iraq War prior to the recent “surge” policy for which McCain takes some credit, many of those problems were developing or already evident when McCain, the former Vietnam War POW, took to the podium to lend his image of expertise on defense and foreign policy to Bush’s cause.

There is little doubt that the Democrats, at their convention later this month, will show selected clips from that speech in which McCain praised Bush’s decision to launch the war to oust the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein and his leadership in pursuing the already longer-than-predicted military intervention.

The remaining three days of the convention certainly featured a number of Republican figures whose careers have remained on the right track, including first lady Laura Bush (who is much more personally popular than her husband); California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ; Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle ; Ohio Rep. Rob Portman , who since has served as U.S. trade representative and White House budget director under Bush and has been prominently mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for McCain; and Wisconsin Rep. Paul D. Ryan , who today is still just 38 years old and regarded as a rising star among a coalition of Republican fiscal conservatives.