NRSC looks to acknowledge party divisions with unorthodox strategy

The new Senate immigration bill has proven perhaps the most divisive issue for the Republican Party this cycle. But instead of ignoring or running from the problem, the Senate GOP’s campaign wing is looking at openly acknowledging the internal schism on its website.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is preparing a two-sided immigration discussion for its website in what is just one example of an unorthodox approach the embattled committee is taking to its media this cycle.

{mosads}While campaign strategy generally calls for emphasizing unity and pushing a particular message, the NRSC is acknowledging its own intra-party discord and even publicizing unkind media.

Pre-launch versions of the immigration discussion could be viewed on the site last week, and the committee’s new news service has been passing along clips, including some that might reflect poorly on Republicans.

The NRSC website also links to the blog of conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, who four months ago mobilized supporters to threaten to withhold contributions from the committee.

It’s all part of the committee’s different approach to media this cycle, which includes being a resource for people who want both sides of the story.

“[Immigration is] a very divisive issue, and it’s divisive for our senators,” NRSC spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher said. “We are exploring ways to bring information on the different aspects of the bill to the voters through our website. We understand that Republican voters have strong views on this issue.”

NRSC Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) talked to ABC News about the immigration discussion last week, but it is no longer accessible on the site, and it is unclear when it will launch or what shape it will take.

The pre-launch discussion summarized pro and con arguments for several questions relating to the issue and encouraged responses from the public.

The summaries included videos of Republican senators disagreeing on the issues, pitting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) against colleague Jim DeMint (S.C.) in one case.

DeMint has been a top critic of the bill, which he calls “amnesty.” McConnell has been an advocate for a compromise.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) highlighted the new feature on its blog last week, saying it underlines McConnell’s “failed leadership.”

“If the NRSC wants to force Republicans to choose between their Minority Leader and another Republican Senator, that’s fine by us,” DSCC blogger Mike Liddell wrote Thursday.

The issue has been a hot potato for the GOP in recent weeks. It has driven a wedge through its 49 members and disturbed a segment of its base, potentially causing fundraising trouble for a committee already trailing its Democratic counterpart by a 2-to-1 margin.

McConnell and other Republicans have drawn heat and, in some cases, boos from their constituents when talking about the bill.

It’s not the only case of NRSC communications strategy raising eyebrows.

The liberal blog MyDD ridiculed the NRSC two weeks ago for publicizing a story about groups attacking Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) over his views on stem cells. The blog suggested the tactic was sloppy and further evidence that the cash-strapped NRSC is inferior to its Democratic counterpart.

The NRSC shot back on its new NRSC Wire news service. The committee said the blog post was “providing further proof that some are incapable of realizing that news does not need to have a partisan slant or serve an agenda.”

The following day, a header was added to the NRSC Wire e-mails stating the service aims to give recipients an “unfiltered view of Senate campaign news — both [Democratic] and Republican.”

Though not completely unfiltered — the top story is almost always pro-GOP — the NRSC Wire has included stories about the progress of Democratic candidates, a potential Republican primary challenger and the potential vulnerability of safer GOPers.

“We have in the past and will be in the future aggressively highlighting the differences between the parties and the candidates — make no mistake about that,” Fisher said. “But our goal for the wire is for it to be a source, to an extent, for both sides of the daily Senate campaign news.”

Early this year, Hewitt led the “NRSC Pledge” petition, in which more than 30,000 signatories threatened to withhold donations from the committee if it supported incumbents who voted against the troop increase in Iraq.

Now the NRSC blog contains a link to Hewitt’s blog, and Fisher said the committee appreciates Hewitt because he “is representing his idea of solutions to a lot of these issues rather than just criticizing what’s going on out there.”

While the committee’s overall strategy is unusual, the circumstances make it appropriate, said political communications expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

She said the wide divisions on such a crucial issue could not be ignored. She also said it shows that Republicans are no longer relegated to defending the policy of a lame-duck president.

“The party is defining this range of positions as within the party,” said Jamieson, who recently co-authored a book entitled unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. “It’s not legitimizing the Democratic position.”