Advice to the Republicans

If I may, a couple of words of advice to the Republicans if they want to win in November, 2010:

1. A lot of people are investigating and criticizing the deals that Obama and the White House may or may not have made to keep Senate priamry challengers out in Pennsylvania and (maybe) Colorado. Apparently, the White House offered Joe Sestak (PA) and Andrew Romanoff (CO) some sort of job (maybe) if they would drop their challenge to the preferred Democrtatic incumbent candidate. Both Sestak and Romanoff declined; Sestak won the primary in PA and the CO primary is in August.

Many in the Republican side want to highlight this as a scandal, and call for congressional investigations into the matter.

My advice: drop it.

My first gut rule of scandals: Can you summarize the "scandal" nicely in one sentence to someone who is impartial?

I think this is a very good rule for any scandal. I believe this is why the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame "scandal" never caught on. How do you summarize that in one sentence? You couldn't. If it's too hard to explain, it's not going to catch on.

Can you summarize this Obama scandal here? What would you say? "Obama is trying to use his power to pull strings and get opponents out of the Democratic primary!"

The obvious response: "So?"

What's illegal here? What's the wrong doing?

The Republicans do have a point when they say that Obama claimed to be "a different kind of politician....not going to be politics-as-usual", and then they admit to possbily dangling jobs out there to get people to drop out. That's a fair critique...but save that for the campaign. That's not worthy of investigation.

Just note these incidents, get sound bites from Gibbs/Sestak/others, and build your campaign commercials for 2010 and 2012 - and move on.

2. What the Republicans should focus on is his handling of the Oil Spill since the news conference. Boy, has Obama mishandled this. Is he, or is he not in charge? Did he fire the head of the MMS? Does the buck stop at Obama? Is it his responsibility?

Obama's news conference last week sent the message that he is in charge; he is leading the efforts, and he is responsible. Here are the quotes:

"My job is to get this fixed."
"I ultimately take responsibility for this effort, and the buck stops with me".

Great. So what are the two key actions that people see him doing after that news conference?

1. The day after the news conference, the Attoney General announces the government will go ahead and investigate criminal charges against BP.

Now, there's probably some validity to that investigation, as laws may have been broken....but tell me how exactly throwing the book at them NOW will help to speed up the process to get the spill fixed? Why not wait for it to be fixed - you will need their help, by the way - until announcing criminal charges?

This is a distraction from the true task of plugging the hole.

2. Two days ago, President Obama was seen at the White House at a honorary concert for Paul McCartney. The President was dancing on stage, singing, partying - even enjoying the political potshots being lobbed by the honoree, Mr. McCartney. "It's good to have an occupant at the White House who knows what a library is for!" said Mr. McCartney. Laughs all around.

That is a very stark contrast to the continual oil flow coming out of the pipe in the ocean.

How exactly is the buck stopping with you, Mr. President, if you find time to yuk it up with Paul McCartney? That visual says more than 1000 words, and the Republicans should exploit that as much as possible to their advantage.

Drop the Sestak investigation and hammer at the incompetence theme - partying while the well is still leaking.