“the Republicans have been winning the battle for public opinion”
Here Barone misses the boat. He makes a distinction between “conservative” and “Republican”. Then he gives Republicans the edge in the above quote. The TeaParty and anti-Obama movements do not come out of the Republican leadership. In many cases the GOP leadership has tried to climb on the TeaParty bandwagon and been thrown under the bus.
The fact is that most GOP congressmen are not from “the suburbs”. They are from “the beltway”. They are as out of touch as are the Democrats.
A separate problem is control of the language. The terms “conservative” and “liberal” mean different things to different people. For some it is a label about economics. For some it is a label about social issues. For many it is not about ideology, but about optimism vs pessimism. About “We can do it/si se puede” vs “we can’t do it”.
The biggest mistake of most GOP leaders is to accept the way the Dems/liberals control the language.
I agree. Conservatives are fighting the libs. Republicans—especially the leadership—are standing on the sidelines, save for a few good eggs in the House, and maybe one or two in the Senate.