The national campaign against Pelosi

NY Times:

Representative Melissa Bean of Illinois, a Democrat, has a Republican opponent in next week’s election, but he does not appear in the advertisement that skewers her. Instead, that role is being played by a fellow Democrat, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader.

Judging by some of the political name-calling in the final days before the elections, Ms. Pelosi seems to be in the thick of campaigns for Congress from Illinois to Georgia and several places in between. She is the unwitting star of at least a half-dozen television spots — and countless radio spots, direct-mail campaigns and candidate debates —warning voters that if they choose their local Democrat for Congress, they are also casting a vote for Ms. Pelosi.

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In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, 55 percent of those polled said they had not heard enough about Ms. Pelosi to form an opinion about her, compared with 10 percent who viewed her favorably and 17 percent who viewed her unfavorably. Other polls released in the last month have yielded similar results.

Still, many Republicans are betting that the prospect of Ms. Pelosi replacing Mr. Hastert as speaker should the Democrats take control of Congress will scare undecided voters into voting Republican.

“Nancy Pelosi is like kryptonite in Republican districts,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for the Republican National Campaign Committee, which is paying for some of the advertisements. “We’d be more than happy to fly Nancy Pelosi in to those districts.”

Here she is in one of the group’s advertisements against Ms. Bean: “Melissa Bean follows liberal Nancy Pelosi 83 percent of the time,” growls the announcer, over images of the Golden Gate Bridge and some not-particularly-flattering snapshots of Ms. Pelosi, who represents San Francisco. “Melissa Bean. Just a Nancy Pelosi wannabe.”

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The television advertisements tend to share three features: images of Ms. Pelosi looking angry, startled or slightly bug-eyed; the words “liberal” and “San Francisco”; and dire tones reminiscent of the films shown to seventh-graders, warning of the dangers of marijuana.

The Republican National Campaign Committee even has a quiz on the home page of its Web site: “Which Nancy Pelosi quote do you find most disturbing?”

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The tactic is fair. People voting for Democrats are voting to empower her and her weird liberal agenda. I am just surprised it has not been used more. In a Texas House race Democrat Chet Edwards has survived by running like a Republican on most issues, but the vote for speaker is one issue where he cannot run like a Republican. However, I have not heard his opponent Van Taylor raise that issue in an ad. He should.