It's the policies, stupid

There have been a wave of articles recently about the impending demise of the Republican Party, and the potential loss of a House seat in Mississippi is threatening to accelerate the process:

The stakes in the 1st District special election couldn't be higher, strategically or symbolically. The loss of a traditionally GOP seat to a Democrat would be the third in a special election this spring and the second in the Deep South after the May 3 victory of Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.).

Rank-and-file Republicans say that would force a day of reckoning for their leadership.

Republicans are scrambling to find a way out of their predicament:

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), in a private meeting with Republicans on Tuesday, admitted the limitations of the anti-Obama strategy and tried to sell his troops on an Obama-like message of "change" as their only hope for success.

"We can't win SOLELY by tying our opponents to Barack Obama and his liberal views. We also have to prove Republicans are agents of change," Boehner told his colleagues, according to talking points prepared by his staff and provided to The Post.

Boehner expects to unveil portions of a new policy agenda this week, part of a year-long effort to "rebrand" his party's image.

Boehner makes it sound like the Republicans are suffering from some kind of temporary or superficial image problem, but what really ails them is the actual substance of their policies. The Iraq War is a failure, health care is in need of reform--and the Republicans just don't have any solutions.

It is interesting to me that the Republicans seem to assume, as a matter of course, that Obama's liberal views are a liability. I wonder if it has ever crossed their minds that they might be wrong about that.