Reaping the full potential of the Northeast Strategy

This morning, as I read the New York Times article about the Democratic Northeast Strategy to once and for all rid us of those pesky pseudo-moderate Northeast Republicans, it struck me that when it comes to strategy, I've only been hearing one of the two potentially stinging talking points used with any frequency by our Democratic challengers.

The most common line of attack in taking on these "Enabling Republicans," as SusanG so rightly called them this morning, is one that speaks heavily to us in the Democratic base, which is to contrast any given candidates supposed independence with their embarrassing rubber-stamp record.

For example, "Congresswoman Johnson claims to be independent from Bush, but in fact it is her vote in Congress that allowed Bush to do X, Y, and Z."

This is great. It certainly does the job of attacking Republicans from the one side, and at the same time, perhaps misses a potential coordinated strategy, which is to force these candidates to explain why they're having to run away from the party. Make them give voters a picture of why they even had to get permission to run away from Bush.

I'd like to hear more challengers saying things like, "If Congressman Shays wants to distance himself from the Republican Party so drastically, why is he still a Republican?" and the "If Congresswoman Johnson is too embarrassed to align herself with her own party, why should voters want to choose her while she stays in the party she finds so embarrassing?"

These are questions that not only hurt NE Republican candidates with their base, who are still blindly proud of Bush and the GOP, by forcing them to confront the fact that their Party is BAD for re-election, but will certainly add dimension to the considerations of why exactly a liberal Northeasterner wants to settle for a moderate Republican when they have a true blue progressive candidate at their finger tips.

Rather than deride Dems for not taking this talking point to their challengers, I'm e-mailing each campaign to suggest they add this question to their package of campaigning. What's even more effective is if those of you who live in these districts and agree with my assessment go and volunteer with these campaigns, and tell them face to face that you appreciate their strong challenge to these dangerous enablers, and that you'd like to see them add this approach to pushing their opponents into accountability.