We already saw Scott Brown proclaim radical Islamic terrorism is going to "
cause the collapse of our country." We also laughed at the ham-handed fearmongering of that claim, since it is essentially a Teletubbies-level approach to foreign policy, but it marks the usual Republican election-year tradition of claiming that the other party is going to kill us all and only true-blue Republicans can possibly save you and your children from the terrorists whose most successful and vicious attack ever was, cough, on their damn watch.
A national Republican ad against two-term Rep. Dan Maffei, D-N.Y., calls him "dangerously wrong for our security" over black-and-white images of extremists. Another National Republican Congressional Committee ad describes Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., as "dangerously liberal."
National security rarely decides elections, especially congressional races, and jobs and the economy remain the overriding issue for voters this year. The GOP move is part of a broader approach of linking Democrats to an unpopular President Barack Obama, whose approval ratings on handling foreign policy and dealing with terrorism have plummeted since U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
The obvious solution would be to kill Osama bin Laden again, and as soon as the scientists work out the kinks I'm sure that will be a recurring election-year event from here on in. The more pressing issue for Republicans is that in all the other issues surrounding these upcoming elections, Republicans are getting hammered. People like their Obamacare just fine, it turns out; American women continue to distrust the GOP for very practical damn reasons; people continue to give the Republican House the same approval ratings usually reserved for infectious diseases; Republican economic policies put into effect in places like Kansas have turned into humiliating fiascos. Obama is already bombing the places hardline Republicans have demanded he bomb and is training the rebels they demanded he train, no light there, so we're left with the more abstract claim that Democrats are bad for national security because
reasons, where
reasons is grainy footage of terrorists that Republicans seem to remember existing only for a few fall months every two years or so.
How are Republicans "better" against terrorism? There's no case made, other than the vague promise to spend more money than the other guy. What historic evidence can be presented that Republicans have actually been "better" against terrorism? Don't bother asking, you won't get an answer. It's the Cheney Assertion, used crabbily throughout his late career, that he and his own are brilliant anti-terror tacticians and that the many, many failures of those plans are somehow everyone else's fault.
We can largely pin these latest efforts on the RNC and the NRCC, two groups not known for innovative rhetoric and two groups who have been particularly adrift since the Romney defeat. Running back to the terrorists-will-kill-you-all-unless-you-vote-for-us well may be the surest sign that they don't think they have any other argument left.
