Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Republicans: Debt will bring Barack Obama down

(POLITICO). Republicans on Capitol Hill think they’ve finally found Barack Obama’s Achilles’ heel: rising public concern about government spending and the federal deficit.

While Obama’s overall job-approval ratings are up over the past month, a Gallup Poll out this week has a 51 percent majority of Americans disapproving of the president’s efforts to control federal spending and a slim 48 percent to 46 percent disapproving of his handling of the federal deficit.

“The president is still popular, but his policies are catching up with him,” said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who, as the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, is in charge of messaging for his conference. “When that happens, it helps us make our points.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO that GOP candidates in 2010 will almost certainly use the deficit to argue that Democrats own a Washington mess.

“This was not an inherited situation. This was a matter entirely of this administration’s and this Democratic leadership’s making,” Cornyn said. “In large part, I believe, 2010 will be a referendum on their performance.”

No comments:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" (Churchill)