After a tough election season and an equally tough lame duck session of Congress, House Republicans are regrouping at an image makeover retreat in Williamsburg, Va. this week.
But it's not looking so good.
Reporters quickly noted that a session for lawmakers called "Discussion on Successful Communication with Minorities and Women" will actually take place in the "Burwell Plantation" room at the resort where the retreat is being held.
It turns out, according to NBC News, the room "is named after the Burwell Family, a wealthy family that owned many slaves in 18th century Southern Virginia."
The irony of learning how to woo minorities in a room named after slaveholders was not lost on Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.): "I don't pick the rooms we meet in."
But the missteps didn't end there.
The New York Times reports the panel discussion on how to communicate with minorities and women included three white lawmakers. Walden had to note that the panel would include several women, whom he identified as "a woman from CNN" and "Sean Duffy's wife."
With such obvious image problems, lawmakers probably shouldn't have been very surprised when GOP pollster David Winston unveiled, as Politico reports, the House Republicans' most recent favorable rating: "It came in at a barrel-scraping 27 percent."
Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political websites. He also runs Wonk Wire and the Political Dictionary. Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and COO of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. senator and governor. Goddard is also co-author of You Won — Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including The Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor. Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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