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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Time to Fire Up the Ed Rollins Strategy

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  September 14th, 2011 at 08:18 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It is time for the Democrats to fire up the Ed Rollins strategy. Back in 1990, Ed Rollins, who earlier this year had served as Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager, ran the National Republican Congressional Committee. This was “read my lips” time and the country really felt betrayed by President George H. W. Bush.

Rollins took a gamble. He wrote a memo to GOP candidates in which he dared put in writing the famous sentence, “Do not hesitate to distance yourself from the President.” He’d already gone to war with Bush over reading a lie on Bush’s lips in the budget deal. This escalated things.

George Bush demanded House leaders fire Rollins until it leaked out that they had asked Ed Rollins to write the memo. The GOP went on to lose only 9 seats after many of them campaigned aggressively against Bush’s betrayal.

In April of 1991, Rollins resigned from the NRCC. George H. W. Bush had gone up to 90% approval after the Iraq War and it was payback time. Bush refused to campaign for House candidates as long as Rollins had a job. Bush went on to famously implode in polling and lose to Bill Clinton.

But Rollins leading the House GOP into an outright revolt against George Bush drastically mitigated their 1990 losses. The Democrats could not do that in 2010 because most people blamed Congressional Democrats, not Obama, for the national failings in that election. But now? Now the public is unemployed and angry. They are looking at the White House and see Obama playing golf.

It might be time for the Democrats to steal a page from Ed Rollins’ 1990 play book. And several signs point to this happening soon.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    One of the big drawbacks of the GOP is the seeming independence of Republicans. The whole “Herding cats” thing. But sometimes that is a strength.

    The modern Democratic party, by contrast is the epitome of the hive mind. They have vigorously enforced group think and now they pay the price. They can no more distance themselves from Obama than the worker drone can distance itself from the queen bee.

  • Nepper

    An underlying factor in all this is that it was easier for GOP candidates to distance themselves since Bush’s tax hikes had gone against an underlying GOP principle.Today’s Democrats would have to run from their own core beliefs – tax,spend,regulate,repeat – if they cut loose from Obama.

    Watching them twist into pretzels is gonna be fun.

  • steve010

    Looking at Charlie Cook’s competitive race chart, I count about 10 (R) at worst case scenario losing seats and 12 (D) losing seats, sorry, 11 now that Weprin lost. So the House (D)s better do something if they want to have a chance of winning back the majority. So much for the myth that voters are going to turn all the bums out. That would put the House at 241-194 for 2013-2014.

  • http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/ kipling

    It appears, according to the Politico article, that Democrats on the national level want a more liberal and aggressive President. The fundamental disagreement is not over policy – like with the Bush tax increases – but rather a President who appears weak to them. I think they would be happy if Obama had proposed the nationalization of the oil and gas industry. The Democratic high command has a total disconnect with the American voters.

  • Darin_H

    Especially red state Democrats. “I’m a conservative, don’t look at my voting history or what I actually stand for when I’m out of my district. I”m not a liberal, trust me”

    And always
    “middle class tax cuts”

    2010 was really good at beating these memes, so I’m hopeful for next year.

  • rememberthealamo

    n/t

  • clintonformccain

    It would probably take too long to fully explain, but it is wide of the mark to think that the Democrat party is unified behind Obama. What happened was that the left wing of the Democrat party took (stole) control in 2008. There are wide swaths of the old Democrat coalition who have been essentially exiled. Remember, Obama lost the primaries in major states (Florida, NY, Mass, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and all across the south) decisively. Those fissures are still very raw, and as Obama implodes, it becomes harder and harder for him to hang on to those Dems.

    For example, the Jewish vote in the New York election yesterday is one of those key Dem constituent groups that has been kicked in the teeth.

    This, by the way, is why it is so stupid for fringe Republican candidates to encourage the MSM to make the story about crazy vaccination conspiracy theories. To fully take advantage of the fissures in the Democrat party, Republicans can’t be viewed at bab-guano crazy.

    It is fun to watch Democrats slowly come to the realization that Obama turns everything and everyone he touches into dung. I had to laugh about Claire McCaskill not getting any money for her race because Obama plans to keep it all for himself.

  • clintonformccain

    NT

  • Tennessean

    Why? This election is crucial. No free advice to the socialists trying to destroy our country, please.

  • Russ Martin

    http://cookpolitical.com/charts/senate/raceratings.php

    Cook shows the Dims with 7 “toss ups” and one likely loss. He shows the Republicans with only 2 “toss ups”.

    We need 5 to retake the Senate. It has huge implications for repealing Obamacare, the Supreme Court, and a whole host of other critical issues we face.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    it was doing that before Obama. I am just saying that the party has a large capacity to coerce it’s people into groupthink. In fact they end up driving out anyone who is not a part of the Borg collective.

    Knowing this, I think there might be several who try to distance themselves from Obama, but they will have their lockstep votes on record on all of the liberal policies to tie them to the administration.

  • unclefred

    1: All the remaining house Democrats were four square in support of Obama and his policies. When Bush broke his promise on taxes, a huge chunk of the Republican party went into revolt. They did not have to change their position to to this. These Democrats have to flip their positions and there is plenty of video of them publicly drinking the koolaid. The negative ads from the Republicans write themselves.

    2: The most individual house democrats are going to be desperately short of money. With few safe seats from which to transfer money and boots on the ground house dems will have to manage on their own, much as many did in 2010 only more so. They will need the money that Obama and his allies can raise. Obama is not going to transfer monies to Democrats campaigning against him. His neck is on the block, failing to parrot the lies that things are getting better will result in excommunication.

    Assuming that Obama does not chose to withdraw, the party is stuck with him around their necks.

  • RichmondG30

    For all I hear about so-called moderate Democrats, I have yet to see one in real life. They exist only in petri dishes and pundits’ columns and history books.

    As soon as a left-wing idea shows up in legislative form, they trip all over themselves in a rush to vote for it (see Obamacare and stimulus).

    Even my two supposed “moderate” Senators (Warner and Webb) ALWAYS fall quickly into line when the time comes. Former “moderate” Congressman Tom Perriello is also unemployed thanks to his lockstep votes for the left wing Obama agenda detested by most of his district.

    They are all lemmings who will follow Obama off the cliff. It’s as sure as the sun rising in the East.

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    Democrats flip positions all the time. There is always footage of them taking a different position. The press never, ever plays it. Do you know how many times candidate Obama switched his position during the primary season in 2007 and 2008? He was a radical for the primaries and a moderate for the general election. Do you know how many times he reversed his statement WITHIN 3 DAYS OF THE CONTRADICTION? And what did it cost him? Democrats flip positions because they can. They get away with it. When you control the press, you can lie with impunity.

    The only place you’ll see that footage of Democrats drinking Kool-Aid will be on conservative blogs.

  • ora09

    The democrats would not propose the nationalization of the oil industry. They are dead set on the not development of our natural resources. They call themselves enviromentalists. I have proposed the nationalization of those untaped resorces. At least the ones existing on public lands. They belong to the people. Why give it away to coorporations? And I am not a socialist.

  • ora09

    What is wrong with the government contracting for the developmnet of the natural resources while retaining full ownership of them? Do we prefer the “cronyn capitalism” of today? I am a full Palin republican but don’t tell them. They might drop me from their mailing list. lol.

  • ora09

    Advising republicans.