<p>The Republican party has a serious problem, and it's not that the party isn't conservative enough. The problem is that Americans are having a hard time understanding what we stand for and whom we represent. Put plainly, it is an identity crisis.</p><p>This identity crisis recently almost cost John Boehner his speakership. Those who voted against him and those who planned to vote against him did so because they feel that the GOP is being pushed in a direction that requires abandonment of their conservative principles. They went to Congress to defend these principles, not compromise them.</p><p>These congressmen are finding it harder and harder to continue down the road that Speaker Boehner placed us on after the 2010 elections. We followed a path that began with a pledge to America to reduce government spending, but led to a debt-ceiling deal that gave the president trillions more to spend, and slashed the two areas of government he and Harry Reid really want to cut: defense and Medicare.</p><p>AdvertisementContinuing down this road, Republicans found themselves, at the end of the last Congress, completely capitulating on the cuts the leadership ineptly bargained for in the debt-ceiling deal. To make matters worse, the president got a fiscal-cliff deal that includes much more in new revenue than in spending cuts.</p><p><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337908/why-we-re-losing-messaging-war-jeff-landry">Keep reading...</a></p>