Remember "Clinton Fatigue"?
It was the notion that people—even people who basically supported Bill Clinton—eventually got so sick of all the ginned-up "scandals" surrounding his administration that they finally just wanted it to be over. When they turned on their TVs, they wanted something—anything!—besides Whitewater or Monica's dress blaring at them.
Supposedly, Clinton Fatigue was part of the reason Al Gore "lost" in 2000, and it was probably part of the reason that Gore chose—wrongly, it appears—to downplay his connection to the Clinton administration. Nonetheless, it probably cost Gore some votes.
Now, of course, the Republicans have a new target for their efforts to induce voter fatigue, and they're giving it their best shot. And complicating the picture is the fact that waiting on deck to succeed Obama is … another Clinton!
Benghazi was their opening salvo in the campaign, and it gave them a twofer: a chance to launch Obama Fatigue while hopefully reviving Clinton Fatigue.
As we get closer to 2016, we can expect lots more of this, and Democratic strategists need to be looking for ways to defuse the fatigue blitz.
Will the strategy succeed? Beats me. We know that Obama remains personally very popular and that Hillary is one of the most admired women in the world, so you could say the R's have their work cut out for them.
But here's the big X-factor: the role of the media in echoing and amplifying the fake scandals into a constant din that might succeed in inducing the desire among some voters to Just Make It Stop.
Republicans do what they do. Sad, but a fact of life. The real danger is when the media willingly play along.