RNC head: Obama has become the "great divider"

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the 2012 presidential race will come down to how well President Obama fulfilled "the very simple few promises he made" - and that Republicans will be unified "no matter what happens."

Priebus, in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, said he thinks Americans are unhappy with Mr. Obama's tenure in office so far, and reiterated a popular Republican refrain about firing the nation's chief executive.

"Americans aren't happy with the direction we're going," Priebus said. "That's the issue. The issue is we have a president in office who, if he was an employee of any business in America, he would have been fired a long time ago, and that's where Americans are at."

He contended that voters will ultimately make their choice about the 2012 election based on the president's record - which he argues won't do the president any favors.

"I happen to believe... at the end of the day what this race is going to come down to is whether or not Barack Obama actually fulfilled the very simple few promises he made," Priebus told CBS' Bob Schieffer. "Like cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Didn't do it. Get the debt under control. Didn't do it. Put people back to work. Didn't do it."

"I mean, the reality is the president has to run on a record," he continued. "And he wasn't the 'Great Uniter' that he promised to be. He's become the 'Great Divider' of this country. That's the issue."

When asked if he thought it was possible that Republicans would fail to select a candidate before the party's nominating convention - despite polls that suggest difficulty among protential GOP voters to rally around a single candidate - Priebus deemed that prospect unlikely.

"I mean, I think it's highly, highly doubtful that that happens, and I'll tell you this: No matter what happens, we're going to be unified because this president needs to be fired," Priebus said. "We need to save this country economically and we need to put someone who is real and authentic back in the White House."

Of the apparent lack of a clear Republican frontrunner, Priebus said, "This is nothing peculiar."

"Look at the president in the White House. He and Hillary Clinton nearly gouged each others' eyes out in a primary before June, before their convention, before they had a nominee," Priebus said. "And guess what? The president won pretty easily. He took a supermajority to Congress with him. Sixty votes in the Senate and guess what? We're all living with the policies of that crowd, and it's not going so well."