Poll: GOP losing spending debate

Behold the genius that is today's Republican Party:

For the past several years, congressional Republicans have focused relentlessly on a single message: Washington ' led by President Obama ' is spending too much money, and it needs to stop.

But according to new Washington Post-ABC News polling, that laser-like focus isn't helping Republicans win the argument over federal spending ' with 67 percent of those tested disapproving of the 'way Republicans in Congress are handling federal spending.'

President Barack Obama isn't doing all that much better, with 52 percent disapproving of his handling of federal spending, but it's not like he's based his entire brand on spending policy. The GOP, on the other hand, has spent nearly every minute of the last four years talking about nothing but federal spending policy. For them, these numbers are a complete disaster.

Republicans fare worse than Obama among independents, with 64 percent of indies disapproving of how Republicans are handling spending compared with 53 percent disapproving of how President Obama is handling it. But the real problem for Republicans is that their own base hates them. Fifty-one percent of GOP voters disapprove of their own party's handling of spending while just 44 percent approve. While Republicans are stuck with a negative net approval rating with their own base, President Obama has a 52-point positive approval rating on spending among Democrats.

Remember, this is not a debate Democrats need to win. This isn't even the debate that Democrats should want to have. They should be thrilled to be close to the 50 percent mark in approval. For this debate, they'd be happy to simply be in the same general neighborhood as Republicans. Well, let me correct that. They'd be happy to be in the same general neighborhood as Republicans if Republicans weren't getting absolutely destroyed.