GOP must find solutions for Americans
by LANNY KELLER - Advocate (excerpt)

Two crunching electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008 in elections for Congress. Election of President Barack Obama in a big win, in which he carried states that had not gone Democratic for more than a generation. Cries for bipartisanship and coming together in the face of a national economic crisis. What’s the Republican Party to do? Just vote no.

All this is fodder for the national press. Political analyst Charlie Cook, writing in The National Journal, described the Congress as divided on partisan lines as it has ever been. Obama’s approval ratings are high with Democrats, solid with independents but under 30 percent among Republicans. That national statistic about Republicans suggests that few officeholders feel they will pay a political price for opposing Obama. “The remaining Republicans, who fundamentally disagree with much of what Obama and the Democrats are trying to do, are overwhelmingly from safe and very conservative districts,” Cook said.

That comfort-level with “no” votes is probably magnified for Louisiana members of Congress, who were elected or re-elected in a state that stayed firmly for Republicans in the presidential election last year. Still, Republicans in Louisiana and the nation are grappling with the lessons of back-to-back defeats.