Barbour: 2010 Seems Better Than ’94 For GOP
The political environment for Republicans is better now than it was around this time in 1994, according to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R).
In President Obama’s first year, Americans wanted action on jobs, not health care reform, Barbour told National Journal on Sunday at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association. “The fear of the effects of this unbelievable spending spurt, and the gigantic deficits that accompany it — the fear of what that’s going to do for them, their children and their grandchildren is real,” he said.
Barbour also discussed why Republicans have outperformed Democrats in their messaging and whether or not he’ll run in the 2012 presidential race.
Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and you share some things in common. Each of you have been national party chairmen. He’s made the point that you Republicans have done a better job than the Democrats in the past year with getting the message out. Do you want to respond to that?
Barbour: What’s happened this year is consistent with my experience. What has happened is, the more the public has learned about the Democrat proposals, the more they are opposed to them. This is very similar to President Clinton’s first “economic plan.” Sometime late in February of 1993, he announced his economic plan. The overnight poll said it was 78 percent approval. His economic plan, which later became known as the largest tax increase in American history, passed the House and the Senate without a single vote to spare —
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Read the long interview and watch a video atNational Journal
2/24/10
