WASHINGTON — In the 2008 congressional elections, it will be every Republican for himself.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are rejecting a sequel to the successful “Contract With America” campaign that won them the majority in Congress in 1994, a top party official said yesterday.

“There will be no effort to try to nationalize the elections,” the House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, told reporters at a lunch sponsored by the American Spectator magazine and Americans for Tax Reform. Mr. Boehner faced repeated questions about the party’s strategy as it seeks to avoid a second straight round of steep losses forecast this fall.

He said Republican candidates could choose from a menu of policy proposals offered by the national party, including plans for energy independence, health care, national security, and crime reduction. “But at the end of the day,” he said, “people will have to run their own elections.”

Mr. Boehner’s comments offered a stark reminder of his party’s challenges in November, led by a lame duck president with low approval ratings and facing an electorate that voted Republicans out of power two years ago.

While the strategy will free up candidates to tout their independence and distance themselves from a party label that has been damaged in recent years, it may disappoint some activists looking for a more cohesive national strategy and a platform centered around new ideas.

An influential conservative activist and an organizer of the event, Grover Norquist, pressed Mr. Boehner on why Republicans haven’t returned to the strategy that worked in 1994.

“Hollywood, when something works, like ‘Batman,’ always does a sequel,” Mr. Norquist said. “Why has there not, in any of the years from then to now, been a ‘Contract With America 2’?”

Mr. Boehner said there hadn’t been a desire to “nationalize” an election as the party did in 1994, when Republicans seized on opposition to Clinton administration proposals, and particularly the president’s failed bid to enact universal health care.

The political dynamics are different this year, the Ohio congressman said.

“The tone’s going to be set by the two presidential candidates,” he said. “The ability of the House Republicans to try to nationalize it…I just don’t see it as possible.”

“It’s a political decision, and frankly, one that I’m comfortable with,” Mr. Boehner added.

In an interview afterward, Mr. Norquist said he understood Mr. Boehner’s rationale but disagreed with the strategy. “Clearly it worked in 1994,” he said, adding: “I think it would be a good idea. I don’t see the downside.”

In addition to the poor approval ratings of the Bush administration, the challenges facing House Republicans are formidable. The party has 30 members who have left office or are retiring, meaning it will have to defend far more open seats than the Democrats. And losses in three long-held Republican seats in special elections earlier this year sent shockwaves through the party leadership. In two of those elections, a strategy aimed at tying the Democratic candidate to Senator Obama failed, suggesting to some that the Illinois senator will not be a drag on the party’s ticket, as many Republicans had hoped.

While the Republican National Committee had outpaced the Democratic National Committee in fund-raising, the GOP’s congressional campaign arm has been lapped by its Democratic counterpart.

Mr. Boehner made little attempt to sugarcoat the situation yesterday and offered few bold predictions for success. “I think House Republicans will do better than expected,” he said. Asked how many seats that meant, Mr. Boehner demurred. “Better than expected,” he repeated with a small smile.

The new Republican standard-bearer, Senator McCain, is polling better than party candidates generally, but he has also backed proposals at odds with the House leadership, such as a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Boehner cited energy as the issue where Republicans are most confident about making gains against Democrats. He pointed to polling that shows Americans increasingly open to offshore oil drilling, a point that both Mr. McCain and congressional Republicans have been pressing of late. But even there, the presumptive nominee is not completely in synch with his party. While Mr. McCain has called for ending the federal ban on offshore drilling, he opposes drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, which is supported by Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders.

Despite the differences, Mr. Boehner said there would be “unanimity” between House Republicans and the McCain campaign on most issues.