Republicans look for new message, no sugarcoating after latest defeat

The Republican Party is making a concerted effort to get real after Tuesday’s crushing special-election loss in Mississippi, but the challenge will be agreeing on how to move forward with a new agenda.

The GOP is in a state of upheaval after Democrat Travis Childers’s stunning 54-46 runoff win over Republican Greg Davis in a very conservative district, and it immediately stopped trying to mask that fact after Tuesday’s result was clear.

{mosads}But despite the stiff dose of reality — and House GOP Leader John Boehner’s (Ohio) Tuesday suggestion that sizable changes could be on the way at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — little changed immediately Wednesday as Republicans moved past what they hope will be their last competitive special election before November.

NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) on Wednesday morning laughed off the thought that he might be removed as chairman and said change wouldn’t start with his embattled staff.

“I think it would be a great mistake to think that this is a question of tweaking things here or there or [making] staff changes,” said Cole, who has clashed with Boehner in the past. “That’s one of the great Washington parlor games — when all else fails, blame the staff.”

Instead, Cole said the GOP’s recent special-election problems have more to do with a deficiency in the party’s message and a loss of confidence in its ability to deliver.

Boehner and Cole both issued blunt and sober statements after the third Democratic takeover in two months Tuesday. Numerous GOPers, including Boehner, were characterizing the result as a “wake-up call” and casting their task as avoiding a fast-approaching rock bottom.

Republicans didn’t offer many excuses for their loss, instead saying it provides an opportunity for the party to take stock of its damaged brand and re-evaluate the difficult six months ahead.

Cole admitted late Tuesday night that “voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general.”

Reps. Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) launched a process intended to change that by introducing a family values agenda Wednesday, and Boehner sent a memo around last week debuting the slogan “the change you deserve.” But nothing concrete has been established as a departure from the party’s past messaging.

The presidential battle could further complicate that goal for congressional Republicans, as attention is likely to be sucked up by a close executive race.

A Mississippi GOP source said there is significant disagreement about how the party should move forward.

“You’ve got many different factions in the House within the Republican Conference, and it may just be a matter of, we just need to bottom out,” the source said. “We’re definitely going through some choppy water right now.

“We could say we ran a bad candidate in Louisiana and that Illinois was an anomaly, but this is the Deep South.”

Tuesday’s loss was particularly painful for Republicans, who blamed previous losses in Illinois and Louisiana on flawed GOP candidates. This time, they had a solid candidate with plenty of money and lots of help, including a Monday visit from Vice President Dick Cheney.

All these factors left the GOP with few excuses to roll out after an eight-point loss in a district that voted 62 percent for President Bush in 2004.

Instead, 18 months after losing 30 seats and the majority, the GOP is talking about rebranding. The problem will be finding a brand that works and that contrasts with the Democrats’.

So far, the GOP seems to be trying to co-opt the mantra of “change” just two years after Democrats used it to great effect. Democrats, notably their front-running presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), continue to use that theme.

“I think here in Washington, the Republican brand needs refurbishing, and I would suggest that comes from reclaiming our heritage as the party of reform, not of the status quo,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Wednesday, before borrowing a slogan from Obama: “That’s just another way of saying, ‘Change we can believe in.’ ”

Despite the shift in rhetoric, the GOP isn’t ready to abandon its strategy of attaching Democratic candidates to Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whom it maintains are albatrosses in the many conservatives House districts in play this year.

The strategy didn’t appear to work in either Louisiana or Mississippi, where ads were run linking the conservative Democrats to Obama and Pelosi. Cole said it’s “still a useful tool,” but that it’s not a stand-in for an actual agenda.

In Tuesday’s runoff, Childers actually expanded on his majority from the special election three weeks ago, turning his three-point win in the first race into an eight-point margin amid much higher turnout. The runoff was necessary since Childers didn’t have a majority the first time.

Republicans maintain hope that the Obama-Pelosi argument can work as the presidential race comes more into focus.

“I think in some places it will work fine, but the problem there is it should have worked in Mississippi,” said a GOP consultant with extensive experience in the South, who insisted that the strategy is moving numbers in some races. “It really speaks to the execution of the strategy more than the efficacy of the strategy itself.”

David Wasserman, a House race analyst with The Cook Political Report, also said the jury remains out on the strategy.

He said many issues that hurt Davis might not have been on people’s radar screens if they were preparing to vote for a presidential candidate.

“Special elections place a premium on the quality of candidates,” Wasserman said. “Travis Childers was simply a better fit for the majority of this district.”

Manu Raju contributed to this article.