With all the hype going on about Obamacare, the government shutdown, and the Ted Cruz talkathon, its easy to get lost in everything that is going on. Now the question is, who do you blame for the impending government shutdown? Is it the Democrats or the Republicans or both equally? From my perspective, it seems that the GOP can’t get out of their own way.
Throw everything aside on how you feel about both parties, about Obamacare, and about their ideals. I want to look at this strictly as an outside marriage councilor watching a couple argue about who does laundry the most. Scratch that, I want to look at this as the neighbor across the street who sees this couple arguing every week wondering how they ever ended up together! Both parties have their points but I have to break it to the GOP and a lot of Republicans that they’re coming across as the unreasonable instigators.
No, I’m not blaming them for being wrong. I’m saying that the differences in their own party, along with a history or poorly stated comments, is causing them to come across to a lot of americans as a group who is disconnected from America. CBS had polled Americans on who they believe have a heavier share of the blame for the impending government shutdown.
44% of Americans polled believe the Republican Party is to blame while only 35% believe it is the Democrats at fault.
16% believe both are equal to blame. Now you need to ask, where is this perception of blame coming from?
Todd Akin’s comment on a woman’s super power of fighting a rape pregnancy sent ripples trough the Republican Party as people tried to distance themselves from that train wreck. Granted that is one person making a stupid comment but these types of comments are much harder to forget than Anthony Weiner’s inability to keep his genitals in his pants.
Ted Cruz worked through his talkathon for a commendable 21 hours. The problem is he didn’t delay the Senate from coming to a unanimous vote to start debating the stopgap spending bill. The bigger problem is the vote was going to happen whether or not he stopped talking so the 21 hour talkathon really seemed to be more of a publicity stunt.
The GOP in general is coming across as extremely negative in almost all public facing statements especially over the past few months. I just recently had an argument with someone on twitter about the GOP Twitter account posting nothing but negative updates.
The argument was that I just ignore the good or positive posts so that prompted me to get some numbers. On the day I had asked the GOP to stop posting negative updates and start sharing how they, as a group, are helping this country advance forward, I reviewed the previous 24 hours of updates and found that only 7.6% of those tweets had a positive message about the GOP.
Here is the problem, the Republican Party is primarily using scare tactic marketing to deliver their messages while the Democratic Party is using positive reinforcement to deliver their message. This is especially true on the topic of Obamacare. If the Republican Party wants to start winning in the eyes of the American people they are going to need to appear to be the party with the solutions and not with the roadblocks. They need to find a way to realign the team on their key topics. That is how you will win public approval.