American Crossroads has released a strategy memo by its president and CEO Steven Law,
One of several reelection strategies President Obama has been trying on recently is to replay Harry Truman‟s successful 1948 campaign, when he ran against the “do-nothing, good-for-nothing” 80th Congress. Not only is that strategy unlikely to work for Obama the way it did for Truman, it actually presents a golden opportunity for Republicans: to differentiate between the Republican-run House and the Democrat-run Senate, and use Obama‟s attacks on Congress as a battering ram against the fragile Democrat Senate majority.President Obama has been attacking Congress relentlessly since mid-August, when he said, “If [Congress doesn‟t] get it done, then we‟ll be running against a Congress that‟s not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear.” To capitalize on Obama‟s attacks, Republicans need to help make sure that “the choice will be very stark and will be very clear.” And the choice needs to be between the productive, open, efficient, Republican-managed House, and the feckless, sclerotic, politicized Senate run by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer....As part of these strategies, Crossroads will produce periodic video content to drive home these contrasts – some focused on overall legislative productivity, and others on specific economy-improving legislation that is bottled up in the Senate. In some instances, it will make sense to invest in paid advocacy via phones, mail, TV, internet ads, and social media tools to intensify the pressure for legislative action to repair the damage that has been and continues to be inflicted on our economy.Republicans in Congress have a rare opportunity to turn the President‟s rhetoric against his own party, for several reasons: first there is almost unprecedented cooperation between the Republican leadership of the Senate and House. Second, message discipline focused on the economy and jobs is growing stronger by the day among Republicans. Third, the President‟s anti-Congress message runs directly into the buzz-saw of emerging American opinion on the relative effectiveness of the two parties.
Meanwhile, it continues to press the tax theme:
