Utah’s Republican Governor Disses His Party’s Leadership in Congress

Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., of Utah, called the GOP congressional leadership “completely inconsequential.”

The Republican governor of Utah on Monday said his party is blighted by leaders in Congress whose lack of new ideas renders them so “inconsequential” that he doesn’t even bother to talk to them.

“I don’t even know the congressional leadership,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, shrugging off questions about top congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “I have not met them. I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential – completely.”

Why are they inconsequential? Because, essentially, all they have to offer right now is “gratuitous partisanship” — they have become “the party of ‘no.’ ”

What’s more, although Republican leaders love to go on about how much Americans want to see a “spirit of bipartisanship,” when asked by a New York Times poll whether Pres. Obama’s priority right now should be working in a bipartisan fashion with Republicans in Congress, or whether his priority should be working to implement the policies he promised during his campaign, 56% of respondents said his priority should be implementing promised policies. Only 39% said bipartisanship was a higher priority.

That’s not all. Americans don’t just want Obama to prioritize his policies over bipartisanship with Republicans — they also want Republicans to prioritize helping Obama implement his policies above pushing for their own Republican policies:

Which do you think should be a higher priority for Republicans in Congress right now — working in a bipartisan way with Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress or sticking to Republican policies?

Working bipartisan way: 79%

Sticking to policies: 17%

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen poll numbers suggest this clearly that the public has no interest in bipartisanship for its own sake. The public doesn’t seem to care about the preoccupations of process-obsessed Beltway pundits, and seems to be looking at the “bipartisanship” question through the prism of what they want their leaders to accomplish in policy terms.

The only bipartisanship majorities want is for Republicans to help Obama realize his policies. Though the poll also shows some skepticism as to whether Obama’s policies will work in the long term, the above numbers would seem to constitute one of the most striking endorsements of the President and his agenda that we’ve seen yet.

Glenn Greenwald has more on the “Americans want bipartisanship myth.”

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