NRCC is Delusional

Bear with me here, folks...and get the duct tape as your heads may explode when you read what the head honcho of the NRCC has to say about the last election cycle and what it means for 2008.

The intellectual brilliance from Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK4) was on display on the pages of the Washington Post and let me tell you, there are some real doozies here... Let's start with 2006:

Cole has run the numbers, and he doesn't think the GOP was doomed by appropriating federal money for bridges to nowhere in Alaska. His diagnosis includes Iraq, corruption scandals and a general sense that Republicans "overreached" after taking over Washington. He's a conservative Republican from a conservative district, but he says that the United States is a "center-right country, not a right-wing country." He wants the GOP to woo swing voters, and he believes they can be coaxed back into the fold with better messaging, better marketing and better performance.

"Oh, I don't think the problem was spending," Cole said. "People who argue that we lost because we weren't true to our base, that's just wrong."

Of course, the author of this drivel thinks that Cole is some sort of political genius with tremendous insight in to the psyche of mankind or something...

Cole, who has worked behind the scenes for just about every prominent Republican politician in Oklahoma as well as the national party, suggested that House Democrats would need a political pro to win back the majority in 2006, and he predicted they'd choose Emanuel to chair their campaign committee. Emanuel, who was once President Clinton's top political adviser, said he doubted it; he'd clashed too many times with party leaders.

"You don't have to like George Patton to know you need George Patton," Cole replied.

Cole was right, and Emanuel ultimately led the Democrats back to the majority. That's why Republicans wanted their own Patton -- their own Rahm -- to take back the House in 2008. And that's why they've elected Cole to chair the National Republican Congressional Committee, where he once served as executive director.

"A guy with that kind of résumé, we'd be paying millions of dollars for him as a consultant," said Rep. Candice S. Miller (Mich.), the head of recruiting for the NRCC.

It's true; Cole has run the Republican National Committee, the Oklahoma GOP and a lucrative consulting business. He has also been a state senator, congressional staff member and Oklahoma's secretary of state. He loves to read cross tabs, and he's a consummate insider. "His Rolodex," says former aide John Woods, "is like all of MySpace plus all of Facebook."

Maybe he has clashed with party leaders because he keeps hanging out liberals like Rahm Emmanuel? Just saying...

The NRCC, and the NRSC for that matter, has a reputation for being an organization that is too focused on protecting incumbents and none too interested in advancing a conservative agenda. Now, some might say that their job is to win elections; but I have always been of the opinion that if you don't move the ball down the field when you win, what's the point?

But even the best political consultants know there's only so much they can do with an unpopular client, and congressional Republicans had a 39 percent approval rating in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll -- nearly as low as that of President Bush and the Iraq war. Cole's ascension raises a tough question for a party that's still tied to that unpopular president and that unpopular war: Do Republicans need to change their policies, or their politics? Can they win back the House by distancing themselves from a lame-duck president and burnishing their image, or do they need a more fundamental ideological shift?

If I'm reading these numbers right for question 48 of this Quinnipiac poll, 75% of Republicans actually approve of the job George W. Bush is doing. Question 49 tells us that only 30% of Republicans approve of what Cole and his friends in Congress are doing. Question 51 tells us that 68% of Republicans agree with the way President Bush is handling Iraq. #54 tells us that 80% of Republicans don't believe the war in Iraq is lost.

Just who is Tom Cole working to get elected? It sure doesn't sound like his answers match up with what Republicans are thinking...