Perception of lack of compassion does hurt the Republican party, just as the electorate’s general lack of common sense and reason will surely aid Obama.
It takes a spokesperson to represent that the GOP is the compassionate party. Unfortunately, outside of talk radio, there really is no spokesperson for conservatism right now. It is compassionate to help people get self-sufficient, it is not compassionate to generate more dependancy on the government. Liberalism promotes dependancy.