The GOP offensive

Mike Allen and Patrick O'Connor:

Confronting a dire outlook for next year’s elections, House Republicans have begun to fight back with a new three-pronged strategy: painting the new Democratic majority as part of an unpopular Washington status quo, forcing Democrats to make unpopular votes on tough issues and locking arms around a new GOP issues agenda.

...

Public opinion remains sour about the White House and the war in Iraq, and some House Republicans in tough districts have exacerbated the party’s weaknesses by deciding to retire, giving Democrats a better chance of picking up some choice swing seats.

...

A crucial aspect of their new offensive: Make Democrats the public face of Capitol Hill at a time when polls show the public is disgusted with Washington in general and Congress in particular.

...

Brian Kennedy, communications director for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the GOP plans to portray its opponents as “the same old tax-and-spend Democratic Party people remember from the 1970s.”

At the same time, Kennedy said, his party is working to “re-establish the Republican brand” by using parliamentary maneuvers that require Democrats to take tough votes on problematic provisions that have been added to popular legislation.

Kennedy said Democrats, especially those from conservative districts, have been backed into a corner on immigration and whether to provide government benefits to undocumented aliens, national security, intelligence and taxation — all “red-meat Republican issues,” he said.

“We are increasingly defining the differences,” Kennedy said.

As a third part of the strategy, Republicans will unveil an agenda after January 2008 that Boehner has described as “innovative, dynamic solutions to the challenges Americans face every day.” However, the GOP leader has yet to spell out exactly what those solutions are, and the promised agenda is already months late in being formulated.

Jessica Boulanger, the NRCC’s communications director, added that the tight Massachusetts outcome reflected the price Democrats are paying for anti-Washington sentiment, and said the race provides a blueprint “for how Republicans can win in this environment.”

...
One of the things Republicans have to take advantage of is that the polls are now reflecting an irrational Democrat bias. They still have not caught up with just how disastrously wrong the Democrats were on Iraq and how badly the Democrats have managed the business of the Congress. The Democrats cannot hide from this reality forever and a good GOP offensive should make the public more aware of the evils of liberalism that infect the Democrats. While it has become clear to many in the media that the Democrats have been wrong about these things they still have not changed the tone of their stories to reflect the reality.

There is still a sense in the media that they and they Democrats have gotten away with their misleading characterization of the SCHIP fight but the USA Today poll shows majority support for the President's position when it is divorced from the prejudices the media and the Dems have created about the President.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more