Steele Claims GOP “Has Turned Corner,” But Polls Show Otherwise
This is some unfortunate timing: RNC chair Michael Steele will launch a new effort today to proclaim that the GOP is making a comeback — less than 24 hours after newly released polling revealed in fresh detail that the Republican Party is in extraordinarily dire straits.
Steele will make a big speech today to RNC officials which focuses the party on “winning the future.” He has an accompanying Op ed in The Politico that proclaims that the “Republican Party has turned a corner.”
But unfortunately for Steele, this bold assertion comes right at the moment when the political classes are digesting new Gallup polling that finds the number of people self-identifying as Republicans has plunged among almost all demographic subgroups.
Other optimistic noises coming from Steele today are similarly challenged by polling data. Steele’s Op ed claims that the GOP represents the “concerns of a majority of Americans.” But a recent New York Times poll found that only 20% trust Congressional Republicans to make the right decisions about the economy, and only 27% trust them to make good decisions about keeping us safe.
The poll also found that only 31% view the GOP favorably — the lowest ever in Times polling.
One expects the GOP to rebound, and the attacks on Nancy Pelosi are invigorating the party. But for now, the stark contrast between Steele’s claims and what the numbers say suggest a new challenge for Steele as the party suffers and shrinks.
To put it bluntly, how can Steele project the sort of optimism expected from a party chair without coming across as increasingly out of touch with reality, or worse, as more and more of a figure of fun?
The homepage of this blog is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
I just posted that story in the lower thread.
I love the part where Michael says: “no more apologizing for GOP failures.”
Dude, your party hasn’t apologized once. Your days of apology haven’t even started yet – but they’re coming. Stick around a little while -
Tena, I was just going to bring up the same point: that maybe what the GOP needs in the eyes of most Americans is to show at least a tiny bit of remorse for all they’ve done. I don’t recall that they’ve done that. Who wants them back in power if they think they’re going to do the same exact things?
BTW, Greg, good job last night on Rachel’s show.
Why exactly would one expect the GOP to rebound? Rebounding only comes with change. The GOP’s position is they just weren’t wingnutty enough so they are doubling down on the stupid. Here is an analogy. For them its the difference between a teenager taking a car for a joyride and a teenager driving their parent to the hospital in an emergency. They don’t realize that people were turned off not just on their spending but also on WHAT they were spending on. While many people may not like govt spending. Most of them also don’t like being out of work and without health care. So the GOP’s new anti spending (unless its on their districts) stance isn’t going to help them its going to hurt them. Besides that they have now UPPED their bellicosity, which I once thought was impossible, in their quest to defend torture. Rudi Guliani was on Morning Joe just a minute ago trying to make a case for waterboarding detainees in the future. Seriously. The things the GOP does today to excite their party isn’t exciting the middle and THATS who they need in order to rebound. Right now everything they are doing is more geared towards, whether intentionally or not, purifying the party and continuing to push people away. I am telling you right now that unless something major happens over the next year or so they will get routed in 2010 and the bad thing is they will be taken by surprise AGAIN. Think about the NY20 race. The GOP put all of their best attacks into that race including using the stimulus bill against Murphy and tons of money in a district that is decidedly Republican. And still they lost to a relative unknown. Thats what you call a microcosm of whats to come and Mike Steele will keep playing to the base as it continues to dwindle down.
Thx S. And nice catch, Tena, I hadn’t noticed that…
Saying he’s out of touch might be going too easy on this guy. If attacks on the Speaker of the House is viewed as a rebound then the GOP never left.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t see you on Maddow’s show, Greg. I have absolutely no say in what our 1 TV is tuned to when Mr. Tena is home. It’s his.
I’m going to try to see the vid. I feel terrible – and deprived!
G~
Saw you on Maddow last night…great job! I haven’t been posting as much…three Sons and end of the school year, but I check often…take care…hope to see you on Rachel’s show again in the future
“Seriously. The things the GOP does today to excite their party isn’t exciting the middle and THATS who they need in order to rebound.”
Of course and we have the middle at the moment and we cannot afford to lose them. I don’t think we will, but that’s one reason I believe the left will not be overly satisfied with Obama’s first term.
As far as torture goes, however, that is not a political issue and I will be really sick if that’s where it stays. (I’ll recover, but I’ll never be the same…)
One more thing. The most popular talking point against moderation by the GOP these days is that they put a “moderate” up for President and the people rejected him. First thats incredibly shortsighted considering the fact that McCain still won a helluva quite a few states and was going against a very attractive candidate. But second, and bigger than that, in order to even get the nomination the GOP forced McCain away from the the few things he could claim to be moderate on. McCain has NEVER been moderate on national security, he is a neocon. He was cheerleading for a war in Iraq shortly after we went into Afghanistan. And that was a big issue. He wasn’t moderate on SS, he wanted to privatize it. He wasn’t moderate on universal healthcare, he always opposed. And where he was moderate on taxes at a time of war before, he totally flipped to wingnut status during the campaign. Where he had been moderate before on immigration he morphed into Joe Arpaio during the campaign. You can’t name a single solitary Republican in the primary who was more “conservative” than who John McCain put himself out as. Mitt Romney was a buffoon, Mike Huckabee raised taxes as a Governor so they felt he was a liberal, Guliani only cared about 9-11 and they didn’t give Ron Paul isn’t a social conservative so they didn’t give him a shot. So the truth is they picked the MOST “conservative” candidate in the primary and then after he lost they wanted to kick him to the curb just so they didn’t have to admit defeat.
sgwhite – That’s insane! I can’t tell you the people who have told me that they might have voted for McCain if he had stayed true to his more moderate Mavericky image. But he went totally insane and ran the worst campaign in American history. He ran to the right of Auguste Pinochet and picked the craziest co-runner of all time!
One more thing, sgwhite – I’m ever so glad that this is how the GOP continues to see this – let’s all wish very very hard that this is how they run in 2010.
The contrast between Rachel Maddow and Morning Puke on Pelosi is stark. Is it MSNBC’s secreat plan to be pro-Republican in the morning and getting liberals angry only to make them happy in the evening when to go to bed?
Greg: saw you on RM; great. What is Jello Jay up to on this subject? Has Harman anything to say or does she feel grateful to be left out?
The funny thing is the the CIA boosters of today were the detractors during the Scooter Libby days. Same people, different sides of the mouth.
Greg, great job on Rachel. I liked when she credited you with being the first to talk to Sen. Bob Graham about the CIA briefings. Rachel more than most gets how much original reporting goes on by you and others.
RE: Steele. I predict he’ll be on the 2010 edition of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
Tena
.
Here is the funny part also. I know a lot of Republicans who would have voted for McCain but didn’t because of Sarah Palin. They would have been all for it if he had chosen Ridge or even Mittens but Palin just turned them completely off. But the GOP’s view of things is that Sarah Palin was the saving grace on the ticket. They think SHE is the reason he didn’t lose even worse. Like one of the blue collar comedians always says, “You can’t fix stupid”.
sgwhite – I know. I can’t believe it, but that is the situation that prevails.
The 1/4 to 1/3 of the population that is functionally insane – the fundamentalists and anyone else who purposely closes their minds and protects that closure – are impossible to deal with. You can’t talk to them – they speak a different language than we do. The GOP has decided to be their party.
I think it’s rather nice, in some ways. Those people have bitched and moaned endlessly over the popular culture’s portrayal of them as buffoons, and over the utter rejection of their loony religious obsessions. Well, now they have their very own political party.
They can all hold a neverending un-birthday party.
Tena
.
Honestly I have come to grips with the fact that we Democrats have our fair share of crazies also. The important difference of course is that our loons really ARE the fringe of the party whereas THEIR loons are increasingly running the show. I mean they have a climate change denier as their ranking member on the energy committee in the house for goodness sake. We won’t even bring up Michelle Bachmann. But these are the people the GOP is embracing now. Its really a sight to behold.
Of course we have loonies – I think that’s inherent in any political structure.
Politics attracts some very strange bedfellows and some of the weirdest groupies, too. Left, right, doesn’t matter.
SG,
This may sound weird, but Clinton and McCain lost to President Obama because of DNA. A powerful, youthful, articulate, charismatic male candidate with no serious faux paux history will always beat a woman that many other women dislike or an old man perceived as curmudgeonly by many of the electorate. The organism with DNA closest to humans selects the biggest baddest most agressive male to lead the tribe. (Chimpanzees). We may have significantly greater intellect, but unfortunately the tendencies are similar enough to make a difference. The reason is that millions of voters did not look beyond surface qualities and never really examined the issues. The only chance the Repulsicans had was to select someone with at least some of the charismatic qualities of President Obama. They were unable to do it and history was made.
actuator
.
That being the case then shouldn’t McCain have lost in the primary to Mittens?
.
Sorry to tear your thesis to shreds.
“The reason is that millions of voters did not look beyond surface qualities and never really examined the issues. T”
actuator: And you now this because…you can read minds?
Know this -
SG,
As I said, they couldn’t follow their instincts. They like to think they’re more intellectual, you know. And besides, Mittens comes across more like a plastic man than a charismatic.
By the way, actuator: if you want to reduce everything down to DNA, how will you deal with the different haplogroups?
We aren’t all the same DNA haplogroup; did you know that?
DNA has to be further broken down, like all aggregates. You can’t reduce anything to biology and then proclaim that’s the end of the chain. It isn’t.
What I said is that there are tendancies, not duplicate behaviors. We’re not the same but there are similarities and most of the time we behave as our greater intellect indicates we should. However, in an election involving millions of participants everyone was not operating (voting) on the basis of intellectual considerations. That was when charisma made a significant difference. Gotta go, check ya later.
“We’re not the same but there are similarities and most of the time we behave as our greater intellect indicates we should. ”
I hate to say this, but I do mean it, and I mean it as constructive criticism which is how you won’t take it – that is the worst kind of unsupported bullshit freshmen year of college argument a person can make.
You cannot assume these things with out some kind of evidence, whether statistical, anthropological, psychological – whatever. You’re just making a specious intellectually unfounded grand statement. I’m sorry – but I got that kind of stuff metaphorically beat out of me in law school.
“The organism with DNA closest to humans selects the biggest baddest most agressive male to lead the tribe. (Chimpanzees). We may have significantly greater intellect, but unfortunately the tendencies are similar enough to make a difference. The reason is that millions of voters did not look beyond surface qualities and never really examined the issues.”
That has to be one of the most absurd statements, well, EVAR.
That poll Greg linked to has some very interesting numbers in it. Particularly regarding what people are most concerned about, their views of Obama, etc. I was also very interested to see that people were evenly split b/w thinking we need to stimulate the economy regardless of the deficit and thinking we need to mind the deficit and let the economy do its own thing. From the noise generated by the MSM on deficit issues, I would’ve thought more people would be clamoring about the deficit.
Do you guys actually believe that 100 percent of the American electorate apply intellect and carefully weigh the issues before casting ballots? I submit that in the TV era there is a segment I like to call the “groupie vote”. Howard Stern and the folks that did the outpolling in Philly pretty clearly, if anecdotally, established that this element exists. I think a serious study would show that its size is dependent on the candidates. If there are couple of ho hum, nerdy candidates that don’t inspire these folks, they just don’t turn out. If there’s a rock star, they show up in droves.
Perhaps Americans will consider another party when they drive some of the Obama crapmobiles and pay for them also. Perhaps Americans will consider another party when they attempt to get medical care but die before they see a doctor. Perhaps Americans will consider another party when they fund Gitmo detainees in America. Since all changes will occur at about the same time, there will be an overwhelming overload for the American taxpayer. Obama’s changes will meet resistance and that resistance will come in many forms.