Strategy Overview

Reid Wilson has an excellent summary of party strategy at Hotline:

Democrats are playing on a field that favors their rivals and with messages that advantage the GOP. Their only choice is to change the dialogue. They need to make the contest a choice between two competing visions rather than a referendum on their own leadership. And that imperative has them playing the political equivalent of small ball.

Democrats have "got to remind people what Republicans were -- the party they rejected last time," said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who led his party's campaign efforts in 2004. "That's good politics if you can make it stick. The problem is, it's only good for a day or two at a time."

Republicans, meanwhile, are no strangers to nitpicking their way through an unfavorable landscape...

None of those attacks will move a vote on their own, just as Democrats shouldn't count on building their majority on the back of Joe Barton. But the Democratic strategy has more to do with building a narrative about who Republicans are. And, in truth, Republicans remain even less popular than Democrats.

"It's going to take a bunch of bloopers. They're going to have to put a lot of hits together to get a rally going," the GOP's Davis said, when asked how Democrats can succeed with their strategy. "The only good news for Democrats is that they're running against Republicans."