A New GOP Pitchman Has Plan To Win Back House In 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050801924.html?hpid=topnews

A New Pitchman -- and a New Pitch
As NRCC Chief, Cole Has Plan to Win Back House in 2008

By Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 9, 2007; Page A01

One day back when Republicans controlled Congress, Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) found themselves talking politics, something both men tend to do when they happen to be awake.

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.

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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?

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That "majority" won't last very long, but maybe that's all they need is one more term to finish off the American experiment.

looks so much like the OK Repube party. Yeah. That'll do it. :eyes: