Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.
The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire" and noted that he has sued 80 patients.
"Opposition research is power," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. "Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents."
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has enlisted veteran party strategist Terry Nelson to run a campaign that will coordinate with Senate Republicans on ads that similarly will rely on the best of the worst that researchers have dug up on Democrats. The first ad run by the new RNC effort criticizes Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) for voting against proposals designed to toughen border protection and deport illegal immigrants.
The Republican Party has nothing left to run on. The war in Iraq is a complete disaster. The Bush administration has admitted that there is no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, there were no Iraqi WMDs, there is a secret NSA domestic spying program, and finally there are secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe--even as they previously denied these allegations when they first surfaced. Americans are looking at the Bush PR-spin on the economy and their own stagnating paychecks, and are questioning whether they are better off under the six years of Bush reign. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is being squeezed out of existence. Katrina and the reconstruction of New Orleans has been another complete disaster. Everything the Bush administration has said regarding foreign or domestic policies has been complete lies after lies after lies. Finally, the Republican-controlled Congress has castrated themselves by refusing to provide any oversight against the Bush White House. This has been the Republican Party agenda, as prescribed by corporate interests, PNAC neocons, and even the Religious Right with their own demands on pushing the social agenda towards the extreme religious views of outlawing abortions, stem cell research, and gay marriage. Everything the Republican Party has done to try to maintain control of Congress for this election year has failed. They can't run on a legislative agenda because they have no positive agenda to show to the American people.
So now for the next two months, the Republicans are going personal with their attack ads against the Democrats. Continuing with the Post article:
In a memo released last week, Cole, who is running to succeed Reynolds at the NRCC, expanded on that strategy. The memo recommended that vulnerable incumbents spend $20,000 on a research "package" to find damaging material about challengers and urged that they "define your opponent immediately and unrelentingly."
GOP officials said internal polling shows Republicans could limit losses to six to 10 House seats and two or three Senate seats if the strategy -- combined with the party's significant financial advantage and battled-tested turnout operation -- proves successful. Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to win control of the House and six to regain power in the Senate.
Republicans plan to attack Democratic candidates over their voting records, business dealings, and legal tussles, the GOP officials said.
In a sense it doesn't surprise me.
The Democrats have got to go all out in responding to these personal attacks. They are also going to need to dig up the dirt, revive the scandals of the GOP "culture of corruption," and shove the Republicans back into their own crap. In addition towards going personal here with Republican candidates, the Democrats also need to paint the Republican Party with the six years of Bush administration failures, again and again, and again. The Democrats cannot let up on these attacks. In addition, the Democrats should also be aware that the Republicans may use illegal means to suppress the vote on Election Day, or commit fraud--the Democrats have got to be vigilant and remind voters of these Republican transgressions. Because the Republicans will certainly use election fraud to maintain their control of Congress.
It is going to get very nasty in the next couple of months.
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