Another Wake-Up Call for the GOP

Gallup has a new poll out this morning that shows that the Democratic Party has a 15 point lead nationally over the GOP in overall approval. The Democrats also hold leads over the Republicans on the formally GOP-safe questions of which party would best maintain the nation's economic prosperity and which party would keep us safer from terrorism. The methodology revealed in the analysis accompanying the poll has no party identification figures for the respondents, so we don't know if one party was oversampled over another. But that's meaningless for my purposes -- the GOP should have such commanding leads in the national security and economic prosperity categories that sampling games would be inconsequential to the ultimate polling results.

The Republican party has handed the Democrats the advantage on what has previously been seen as central GOP strengths for decades. And this is not a one-time aberration. These dropping poll numbers started in the second half of 2005. If that isn't a clarion call directed at the Republicans to clean out their house and get back to basics, I don't know what is.

Is there hope for the GOP? Sure, but only if they start acting now. Why? Because Gallup also tells us that the advantage that the Democrats now have has nothing to do with themselves:
The recent gain in the Democratic Party's image advantage is due primarily to a sharp decline in Americans' favorable perceptions of the Republican Party more than an improvement in the public's perception of the Democrats.
The Republicans should feel happy about stopping the Democrats from surrendering our national security interests in Iraq and intentionally losing the war. But that's just one victory, and it will be meaningless if they lose more Congressional seats in 2008, let alone the presidency. If the GOP is serious about not only reforming its image but its message as well, they should start now. Next year will be too late.

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