Telling People What They Don't Want to Hear

Current Republican Wisdom is that they don't have to worry about losing elections, no matter how poorly they perform or how poorly the American people think they are performing, because they are running against Democrats. No matter how badly they perform, the people are always going to be more worried about how the Democrats might perform.

They might feel some justification in this theory based on the 2004 elections, when the people chose to keep President Bush despite manifest frustration with how he had performed.

Unfortunately that may not turn out to be the case, as Robert Novak gingerly points out in his latest article, in which he discusses Sen. Lindsay Graham.

Since talking to the senator, I have tested his theories with a dozen prominent Republicans. All feel the tide has turned for them over the last month. Each of them claims that the American voter will stick with the Republicans after taking a good look at Democrats, a mindset that often is a precursor of defeat.

Sen. Grahm's solution is for the Republicans to actually cut spending. This could work. It's kind of a joke how Republicans claim to the party of fiscal responsibility and yet they rarely actually cut spending. Actually making some serious cuts could change the playing field.

I don't think they will follow this plan, and I don't think it's a good plan for the country (some cuts might be good, but in order to return to fiscal prudence we'd also need to raise taxes to a sensible level).

Novaks tone is interesting in this article as I hinted at in my title. Obviously he knows what his audience wants to hear, and telling them that they may lose in November is not among those items.