WaPo: Republican Leaders Face "widespread disaffection and disagreement"

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 3:58pm

Poor GOP! Every day looks worse for them...

Snippet:

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GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections

By Dan Balz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A01

Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.

Anxiety over President Bush's Iraq policy, internal clashes over such divisive issues as immigration, and rising complaints that the party has abandoned conservative principles on spending restraint have all hobbled the effort to devise an election-year message, said several lawmakers involved in the effort.

While it is a Republican refrain that Democrats criticize Bush but have no positive vision, for now the governing party also has no national platform around which lawmakers are prepared to rally.

Every effort so far to produce such a platform has stumbled....

In the absence of a positive national message, Republicans also hope to use long-standing "wedge issues" to galvanize their own base and try to put Democrats on record with unpopular votes. Congressional leaders, for instance, plan to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin said that even some once-powerful weapons in the Republican political arsenal have less appeal today than in the past. "Whether it's taxes or moral conservatism or national security, there's nothing the Republicans have said or done in their experimenting with message that outweighs this overwhelming sense Americans have that President Bush has misled the country onto a negative path," he said.

Republican pollster David Winston said his party can find broad consensus on jobs and competitiveness, fighting terrorism and securing U.S. borders. "Those are the three big items," he said. "There is unanimity on those three. Once you get beyond those three, there may be different senses of direction."

Blunt said it is more important for Democrats to produce a governing agenda because Republicans have a record to run on. But he also said action this year is essential. "We are, after all, legislators," he said. "We need to be making something better, eliminating something or moving in a new direction."

Republicans have a list of prospective priorities. Whether many will become law is problematic, although that does not seem to worry GOP leaders such as Blunt. "We'd like to see them become law, but a vote lets the people know where we stand," he said.

One Republican strategist, who asked not to be identified so he could speak openly about the party's problems, said divisions between moderates and conservatives have left the House and Senate Republican conferences in disarray. "Getting consensus on policy matters . . . is very difficult," he said. "That has caused stagnation and led to perceptions that Republican governance is going nowhere."

GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections

Updated On: 3/20/06 at 03:58 PM