Brand Damage

The American Issues Project conducted a survey of early and likely voters in four swing states; the results are sobering, but not surprising, if you’re a Republican:

The survey found that approximately 72 percent of those voters agreed that: “The Republican Party used to stand for keeping government spending under control, but not anymore.” More than 75 percent of likely voters agreed with the statement: “When the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, they promised to reform government and clean up corruption in Washington, but they failed to live up to that promise.”

Those surveyed gave Democrats the edge on “Keep[ing] government spending under control and reduc[ing] the deficit” and “[doing] a better job of dealing with our current economic crisis.”

Interestingly, only 9.6 percent said the Republican Party is “too conservative.” We’ve got to get that number up!

As I noted here, successfully controlling federal spending is not something that either party can lay claim to. No doubt, after a few years of Democratic governance more voters will favor the GOP on that issue. Still, that’s cold comfort: as long as both parties are unwilling to get serious about entitlement reform, controlling federal spending is impossible.

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