The Politico: Republicans plot fall offensive
By: Mike Allen and Patrick O'Connor
Oct 17, 2007
Confronting a dire outlook for next year’s elections, House Republicans have begun to fight back with a new three-pronged strategy: painting the new Democratic majority as part of an unpopular Washington status quo, forcing Democrats to make unpopular votes on tough issues and locking arms around a new GOP issues agenda.
House Republicans might well be expected to be watching their better-funded, in some cases cocky, Democratic competitors from the fetal position. Public opinion remains sour about the White House and the war in Iraq, and some House Republicans in tough districts have exacerbated the party’s weaknesses by deciding to retire, giving Democrats a better chance of picking up some choice swing seats. Indeed, many strategists in both parties see a likelihood that the GOP minority will lose even more ground in both the House and the Senate come Nov. 4, 2008. The current lineup in the House is 233 Democrats and 200 Republicans, with two GOP seats vacant because of members’ deaths.
But House Republicans came out punching this week after a slow start to the election cycle, filing a respectable quarterly financial report and vowing to make Democrats’ lives as miserable as possible....
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Brian Kennedy, communications director for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the GOP plans to portray its opponents as “the same old tax-and-spend Democratic Party people remember from the 1970s.” At the same time, Kennedy said, his party is working to “re-establish the Republican brand” by using parliamentary maneuvers that require Democrats to take tough votes on problematic provisions that have been added to popular legislation.
Kennedy said Democrats, especially those from conservative districts, have been backed into a corner on immigration and whether to provide government benefits to undocumented aliens, national security, intelligence and taxation — all “red-meat Republican issues,” he said....
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6420.html