Several interesting polls came out this week on the kind of issues that the Republican Party needs to be paying attention to.
The first is on the issue of English in America. A Rasmussen poll found that 84% of Americans say English should be the official language [3]. Only 9% disagreed. Want more?
Eighty-two percent (82%) also reject the idea that requiring people to speak English is a form of racism or bigotry, up three points from 2007. Just 10% think such a requirement is racist or bigoted.
Support for making English the nation's official language is strong across partisan lines. The concept is supported by 96% of Republicans, 74% of Democrats and 85% of adults not affiliated with either major party.
Similarly, while 90% of Republicans believe companies should be permitted to require employees to speak English on the job, that view is also shared by 80% of unaffiliateds and 74% of Democrats.
Then there's the issue of "government" - as in too much of it. A Fox News poll this week found that 71% of Americans want less government in their lives [4]. Not "more", as Republican "moderate" Colin Powell suggested recently [5]. More?
The Obama administration consistently uses the word "invest" or "investment" instead of government "spending." Even so, most Americans don't make the distinction as fully 78 percent say it means spending their tax dollars, not saving them.
In addition, 54 percent of voters think the Obama administration is proposing too much of an increase in government spending, while 6 percent say not enough. About a third -- 35 percent -- says the spending is "about right."
As the leaders of the GOP try to figure out "what the party stands for", they would do well to consider how the American people feel about key issues like these that relate to core issues such as immigration and government/spending - to say nothing of what the people that actually comprise the party for.
The question is, will they?
And I'm not talking about simply taking a position. We've had our fill of people who take a position. We need candidates and elected officials that will fiercely advocate for such positions. And those are rare animals.
