Attack the Plan, Not the Man

In my column for CNN, I explain why the GOP needs to focus on attacking Obama's economic plan, or risk alienating many voters:

Republican partisans loathe Barack Obama even more viscerally than core Democrats despised George W. Bush. Yet as with Democrats in 2004, it's hard for Republicans to keep in mind: The typical voter does not feel as they do.

Even now, only 48% of Americans blame Barack Obama for the state of the economy, as opposed to 71% who blame George W. Bush.

Even now, Americans continue to show considerable personal support for Barack Obama, even as the Republican brand remains toxic, with 68% disapproving of the job Republicans are doing in Congress.

The message for Republicans in these polls would seem to be: Fight the plan, not the man. Americans may be persuaded that Obama is a basically decent guy, in over his head. They won't be persuaded that Obama is an anti-American radical on a jobs-destroying rampage.

And yet it is precisely that kind of implausibly angry anti-Obama talk that Republican primary voters delight to hear. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has displaced Mitt Romney as the Republican front-runner by offering Republicans a stronger anti-Obama message. As for Perry's own vulnerabilities -- vulnerabilities that get bigger every time the Texan unburdens himself of new qualms about Social Security and Medicare -- Republicans gripped by anti-Obama emotion just cannot see them, any more than Democrats could see John Kerry's disconnect from the economic concerns of middle-class voters.

Click here to read the full column.