By Keegan Gibson and Meghan Schiller

At Republican state committee a few weeks ago, one couldn’t help but detect a sense of frustration among party members about the messaging – or lack thereof – coming from the Governor’s office.

“Governor Tom Corbett is doing the right things,” said one committee person, “but I miss candidate Tom Corbett who sold those things to voters.”

“They’re giving the Democrats free reign to spread whatever they want in the press, and not responding,” responded another. “Like the revenue surplus they talk about. We’re actually billions in debt.”

They may have a point – yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll showed that while voters like Corbett by a 51 to 14 percent margin, they disapprove of his approach to the budget 52 – 33 percent.

And recent headlines about the Governor’s $53,000 SUV threw the administration off message for several days.

It’s a tough turnaround for someone who won election with 55 percent of the vote on the message of making tough fiscal decisions.

Now the Pennsylvania Republican Party is hitting back.

In a flurry of recent press releases, the PAGOP has defended several points of Corbett’s agenda and budget including education funding and the so-called revenue surplus.

The party also launched a new addition to its website called “A Taxpayer’s budget,” which aims to “debunk the tall tales, myths and outright falsehoods about Governor Corbett’s fiscally responsible budget.”

“We all know that Pennsylvania’s fiscal house will crumble if our elected officials don’t act quickly to put us back on the path towards fiscal solvency. Governor Corbett has led the conversation by creating a fiscally responsible budget that doesn’t raise our taxes by a single cent while making key investments into our Commonwealth’s future.  Without a doubt, Pennsylvanians demanded leadership last year, and Governor Corbett has delivered,” Party Chairman Rob Gleason said.

Party spokeswoman Valerie Caras says, and that the PAGOP is taking on an ancillary role in messaging – that their talking points are nothing new.

“Governor Corbett defined the message of our Party when he put forward a fiscally responsible budget that will reform the unsustainable tax-spend-borrow-spend trend of the previous eight years,” said Caras. “We are happy to echo and support his principled stand to voters across the Commonwealth and remind them that Governor Corbett’s budget puts our Commonwealth back on the path towards economic prosperity.”

Nonetheless, it’s clear from the recent uptick in messaging that the party wants to sustain its momentum from the 2010 election, and prevent Democrats from gaining the upper hand in the message war.

With the June 30th budget deadline looming, Corbett can certainly use all the help he can get.