Robert Schlesinger : GOP is in an all time low of -26% points of negative net unfavorability (33%-59%)- Perry, Bachmann, and Romney can not save it - The GOP deliberately created a debt crisis which endangered and ultimately harmed the nation's creditworthiness

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Obama (whose 41 percent approval looks grand next to Congress's rating) is gearing up for a Truman-esque run against Congress and its stubborn gridlock. -



U. S. News and World Report
Can Perry, Bachmann, or Romney Save the Republican Party Brand?
August 24, 2011


By Robert Schlesinger

Robert Schlesinger is opinion editor at U.S. News and World Report, a liberal blogger on Thomas Jefferson Street and the Huffington Post, and writes a biweekly column for U.S. News. He is the youngest son of the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and the youngest brother of Stephen Schlesinger. His first book, published in April, 2008, on the history of presidential speech writers, is called White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters. He used to teach political reporting at Boston University's Washington Journalism Center.

Schlesinger has worked at the Center for Public Integrity as a researcher, then at The Hill (newspaper) as a reporter and Political Editor, at Voter.com as Chief Congressional Correspondent, and as a Washington, DC reporter for The Boston Globe. He is currently Opinion Editor with U.S. News and World Report and oversees all their opinion content, including the Thomas Jefferson Street blog. He is the author of White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters (Simon & Schuster, 2008).

Can Perry, Bachmann, or Romney Save the Republican Party Brand?


Some excerpts :

The GOP deliberately created a debt crisis which endangered and ultimately harmed the nation's creditworthiness. Despite overwhelming evidence that the public prefers to solve the deficit and debt issues with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, the GOP has stubbornly refused to even consider revenue hikes.

And that is perhaps the GOP's most fundamental problem. Poll after poll shows that independent voters prefer leaders who compromise over politicians who refuse to move from their positions.

But the same polls show that Tea Party supporters have a diametrically opposite view. So GOPers, mindful of the incumbent seats the conservative fringe collected in primary challenges last year, have disdained compromise as a dirty word.

That's why Obama (whose 41 percent approval looks grand next to Congress's rating) is gearing up for a Truman-esque run against Congress and its stubborn gridlock. If Congress doesn't act on the jobs plan he will unveil in September, he said last week, "then we'll be running against a Congress that's not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear." In keeping with his post-partisan brand, the president is hitting the Congress as a whole rather than just House Republicans. But he does so knowing that the GOP has taken the bulk of the damage from anti-Congress sentiment.

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