Republicans like Amash, Paul, Pompeo, Rove and Boehner can't all get on the same page. GOP's sequester messaging muddle

The Republicans’ message on the sequester couldn’t be clearer: They don’t have a unified one.

There seem to be three distinct camps: Most congressional Republicans appear willing to let the sequester happen since they can’t replace it in time. Others want the cuts to be even deeper. And still others wish that House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama would just get in the same room and negotiate a deal, even if it includes the tax hikes that most Republicans abhor.


But in the spin war with Obama — who has had one consistent message of late: that the massive, across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect March 1 will gut cherished programs — the message muddle has put the GOP at a disadvantage.

(PHOTOS: What they're saying about sequestration)



Even GOP strategist Karl Rove wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal that “congressional Republicans are simultaneously united divided and confused” about the sequester.

And so far, any attempts the Republicans have made to take their case to voters don’t seem to be working and the public is placing the blame squarely on them. Of course, it remains to be seen just what kind of real-world effects the sequester wreaks, or whether it becomes more of a yawn than a crisis to voters.

But a recent poll by USA Today and Pew Research Center found 49 percent of those surveyed would blame congressional Republicans if a deal isn’t struck, compared to 31 percent who would blame Obama and 11 percent who would think it’s both of their faults.

(Also on POLITICO: LaHood: Sequester means furloughs)



“To win public opinion to their side, Republicans will need a proactive strategy that shows the GOP is committed to restrain spending, make cuts as smartly as possible, and keep the government running,” Rove wrote in the WSJ. “It won’t be easy, given the president’s intrinsic advantages and bigger megaphone.”

The cards aren’t stacked against Republicans this time, GOP strategist Joe Brettell argued, explaining the lawmakers should stop using Capitol Hill press conferences and “take a page from the President’s playbook” to go directly to voters.

“Members need to cite specific examples in their local and regional media of places where the government has spent taxpayer money in an inefficient or wasteful manner,” Brettell said. “Linking the idea that this fight is about their constituent’s household budget, as well as their concern over the ballooning deficit, will ensure that the GOP wins not only the media battle, but conversations over water coolers and kitchen tables in their district.”

(Also on POLITICO: O'Malley, McDonnell: Congress must act)

Here’s a look at the various GOP arguments:

Let the cuts happen

House Speaker John Boehner and the House GOP leadership represent the largest GOP faction — those who wish there was a better way to slash the deficit, but barring that, are willing to let the across-the-board cuts take effect on Friday as planned.

These Republicans have loudly tried to lay the blame on Obama’s doorstep, promoting the cuts as Obama’s sequester at every opportunity and using the #obamaquester hashtag on Twitter. They got an assist this weekend from Bob Woodward when he wrote that Obama and his aides were responsible for the original sequester idea, and had “moved the goal posts” by insisting that tax hikes be part of any solution.

Republicans also argued they’ve voted twice — in May and December of last year — to replace the sequester with other cuts. Now, they say, it’s Obama and Democrats’ turn.

“In a bit of irony, President [Barack] Obama stood Tuesday with first responders who could lose their jobs if the policy goes into effect,” Boehner wrote in the WSJ last week. “What they might not realize from Mr. Obama’s statements is that it is a product of the president’s own failed leadership.”

This pro-sequester group includes GOPers like Reps. Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.), Mike Turner (Ohio) and Mike Pompeo (Kan.), who have all said they prefer a different way to cut government spending. But if there’s not a solution on the table by March 1, they think the sequester should be implemented.

Pompeo told POLITICO on Feb. 13 that the sequester would be a “home run” politically for House Republicans if it was implemented.

“The sequester is here, it’s time. We got to get these spending reductions in place,” said the Kansas Republican.

“We have a spending reduction plan and for the first time we’re going to follow through on it…On March 2, we’ll wake up and the American people will have tremendous respect for what its House of Representatives led,” he added.

The sequester is fine, but it could go deeper

Another group is made up of people like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has been loudly proclaiming that the cuts are not nearly deep enough.

“It’s a pittance. I mean, it’s a slowdown in the rate of growth. There are no real cuts happening over 10 years,” Paul said on CNN this week of the sequester.

Paul is getting plenty of airtime on cable channels to promote his views, which may leave some with the impression that he’s speaking for Republicans on the subject. He was chastised by a Princeton scientist for mocking a government study of goldfish that Paul said was intended to learn about democracy.

“I think the sequester happens and it will be in some ways a yawn because the histrionics that are coming from the president saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to shut down and get rid of meat inspectors’ — I mean, is anybody not going to stand up and call his bluff on that ridiculousness?” Paul added.

Let’s make a deal

A third GOP faction includes Republicans like Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), who has a large naval shipyard in his district that Obama is visiting next week.

Rigell is practically begging for Republicans to go back to the table with Obama, and hasn’t ruled out tax increases as part of any deal like the rest of his party.

“I do believe that a position … of any agreement that has one dollar of revenue is, to use the phrase Senator Reid is so fond of, is dead on arrival, I don’t think that’s a wise position and I don’t hold that position and I think we should be ready to consider alternatives that may be at first glance something that we wouldn’t support outright,” Rigell told POLITICO. “I just want to get something on the table. I’m a business person.”

Some Republicans sound frustrated by their own party’s handling of the issue.

Conservative Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) raised eyebrows at a Michigan townhall last week when he said that he would vote against any plan, including from his own party, to replace the sequester that didn’t maintain the current cuts.

“They’ve been throwing this at the Democrats, saying we put two proposals on the table to replace the sequester,” Amash said, according to the Grand Rapid News. “No, we haven’t.”

Amash argued that the GOP’s sequester alternative — which the party notes it passed twice in the last Congress — would instead spread spending cuts out over several years, leading to what he said would be spending increases. If the GOP proposes such a bill, the Michigan lawmaker says he’ll vote no.