The GOP Needs a Voice

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner won't cut it, Daniel Henniger argues
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2013 1:41 PM CST
The GOP Needs a Voice
White House press secretary Jay Carney gestures as he speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan. 9, 2013.   (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Obama's press conference this week drew front-page coverage from all the major papers, but Mitch McConnell and John Boehner's responses were buried. "Media bias? No, media reality," writes Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal. "It isn't that no one is listening to the GOP. There is nothing to hear." Henninger's proposing a simple step: Name an official party spokesperson. Right now, McConnell and Boehner are trying to be both leaders and spokespeople, but no one, in any industry, does that anymore.

"A leader speaks when the stakes or moment require it." Jay Carney may have "a personality flatter than a cold pancake," but day after day he communicates the president's position to the world, so that when Obama speaks, it carries weight. In the absence of a GOP counterpart, outspoken lawmakers are rushing to fill the messaging void, "creating a GOP tower of Babel." Just get a professional, and let him or her carry the torch. "The party of opposition doesn't have a strong institutional voice in Washington. It needs one." Click for Henninger's full column. (More Jay Carney stories.)

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