A team of GOP researchers has been working tirelessly in a windowless room at the Republican National Committee headquarters compiling a kind of Obama-pedia, reports the Washington Post. The searchable digital archive of text and videos of all of the public statements the president has made since the start of his 2008 campaign will be used as the playbook for the campaign to oust him in the general election.
The plan is to let Obama do his own talking in the ads against him.
Ads will feature promises he made as a candidate and in the early days of his presidency — on things like job creation, homeowner assistance, and poverty reduction — contrasted against actual results. A prominent clip will reportedly be from the 2009 Today show interview, where Obama said that if he could not fix the economy in three years, “then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”
GOP strategists said that an “in his own words” approach was chosen rather than traditional attack ads because many voters — even those who think the country is on the wrong track — like Obama personally and respect the historic significance of his election. Afraid of turning voters off with negative ads, they apparently want to try Newt Gingrich’s Iowa approach in the general election.
But it looks like Mitt Romney and not Newt would be able to slide most easily into the final strategy. Conveniently, the RNC’s research director and author of the playbook is Joe Pounder, a former Romney campaign aide. Romney has already been using the tactic, quoting the president often in his campaign stops.
Democrats reportedly also have prepared a similar playbook that paints Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper.
