GOP Fringe Plays Into Obama's Strategy
The weak economy gives the GOP a good chance to win in 2012. Unfortunately, as I discuss in my latest column for CNN.com, the GOP's fringe is taking attention away from Obama's dismal economic record.
As Texas Sen. Phil Gramm phrased it on the campaign trail in 1996 to a struggling Republican House challenger, "There are only two issues when running against an incumbent. Her record, and I'm not a kook."
So the Republican playbook for 2012 should follow a simple plan:
1) Focus on the president's record.
2) Do not allow the militant wing of the party to bind the whole party to election-losing issues.
3) Keep the kooks off the main stage.
And yet this simple plan is proving surprisingly hard to execute.
Look at the issues the House GOP has decided to showcase this summer:
A) A budget plan that would gradually withdraw Medicare coverage from everyone younger than 55, to the point where the Congressional Budget Office estimates that senior citizens will be paying two-thirds of their health coverage out of pocket by 2030.
B) A threat to force a default on the obligations of the United States by August unless the president yields on point A.
In other words, Republicans are in danger of violating point 2 of the incumbent-defeating plan.
Meanwhile, the conservative entertainment complex seems bent on trashing point 3. So far this year, Fox News and talk radio have pushed Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann as top-tier presidential candidates. Now they are trying the same for Herman Cain, while lovingly publicizing Sarah Palin's donation-seeking bus tour.
Yes the American media always loves a freak show. But a political party does not have to cooperate. ...
Click here to read the rest.