Coming Up With a Winning Message

It hasn’t been an easy run for House Republicans. Once at the tip of the spear of the revolution, they are disillusioned, depressed and disgusted with themselves.

They know that they screwed up in the 2006 election, and they know that to get it back, they have to change.

But it is not easy to change.

Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), one of the bright stars of the Republican Party, is in charge of communications for the House team, as conference chairman. It is a thankless job.

He wants to get his team back on the road to recovery.

And he is offering a communications game plan to make that happen.

Putnam and his team see that there are three keys to fixing a broken Washington.

First, protect the middle class and address their kitchen-table issues.

Second, in this time of war, support our citizens-soldiers at home and abroad.

Third, stop Washington from wasting our money and make Washington work for us.

Rhetoric is fine, but getting the rhetoric to match the policy is key.

After testing certain messages, Putnam and Co. found the best policy to push is funding quality benefits for citizen-soldiers in the Guard and reserves, followed closely behind a nationwide crackdown on child predators and gangs.

They found that securing borders didn’t test nearly as well as targeting gangs.

They found that dealing with the cost of healthcare was much more important than so-called “universal” healthcare.

They found that keeping up with cost of living was their biggest concern about the economy, and that people were more concerned about the effective use of their tax dollars than they were about their own personal tax burden.

As Republicans begin to coalesce around their presidential candidate, it is clear they need to move on from the past and start embracing the future.

They need to be more in tune with their constituents, and less dogmatic about their approach. And they need to start offering ways to fix a broken Washington, and forget about defending the status quo.

Putnam has the right ideas. His colleagues ought to listen to him.