WASHINGTON -- The Republican National Committee's chairman, Reince Priebus, claimed on Sunday that President Barack Obama "says one thing and does another" and that voters will be able to decide in November whether he is "a man of his word."
"It will be a referendum on whether people are better off today than they were three or four years ago, which they're not," Priebus said about the general election. "And it'll be a referendum on whether Barack Obama is a man of his word and fulfills the promises that he makes to the American people -- which he has not," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Republican pollsters and strategists have long encouraged those involved with the Republican Party to challenge the president's record on the economy and his job performance but to stay away from attacks on his character because polls have shown that even the president's opponents find him personally appealing. Character attacks, they warn, could backfire and encourage those inclined to vote against the president to come to his defense. Establishment Republicans have worked hard to distance themselves from elements of the party still fixated on whether the president is telling the truth about where he was born despite ample physical evidence of his American citizenship.
Priebus, who replaced Michael Steele as RNC chairman, also said his staff was not yet preparing for a "brokered convention" and insisted that "one of these four candidates will be our nominee."
"We're not making plans right now for a brokered convention," he said. "The upside is we have rules for any situation."