Operation Unified Lemming

post from Daily Kos on 23 February 2009 08:22:56 AM. © Daily Kos

The GOP announced today that the party as a whole would be heading off the political cliff later this year.

Republicans are hatching a political comeback by dusting off a strategic playbook written nearly two decades ago.

Its themes: Unite against Democrats’ economic policy, block and counter health care reform and tar them with spending scandals.

Those represent the political trifecta that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich bet on in 1994 to produce a historic Republican takeover of Congress.

Keeping in tune with polls that show that only ultraconservative Republicans like them, GOP and conservative leaders have decided to shrink the GOP until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub.

Democrats were somewhat skeptical, noting that independents were supportive of Democrats and not Republicans on the major issues:

Health care is a personal issue for many voters. Reforming the current system ranks as the public’s third top priority, according to a January Kaiser Family Foundation poll. And many of those advocates aren’t traditional Democratic constituents.

"We are in a different game, and they are playing by the old rules," said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic political strategist and former Clinton adviser.

Republican leaders like Eric Cantor and John Boehner are debating whether to add anti-flouridation to the GOP agenda, in case their message isn't clear. But whatever the final strategy, if it worked in the 60's or the 80's or the 90's, it's on the table for discussion.

"We're thinking of calling for universal exorcism and bloodletting as national policy," said an anonymous source close to Governor Sarah Palin, as the Republican Governors figure out how to refuse stimulus money for their states.

"We'll start with apostates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist and see how it goes."

The plan won't be formally ratified until all the carrier pigeons return with the ballots.