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Please, please PLEASE! Dear God, please let the Republican Party listen to Fred Barnes

POLITICS IS PRETTY SIMPLE. If the debate in an upcoming election puts your party at a disadvantage, it makes sense to try to change the debate. At the moment, the 2006 midterm election is framed as a referendum on the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, putting Republican candidates on the defensive. Party strategists, led by chairman Ken Mehlman, want to rejigger the debate so it's about a choice between candidates, putting Democratic candidates on the defensive as well. In short, they want it to be a choice election, not a referendum election.

Doesn't sound like something I should be cheering, right? Just wait until you see the issues they think will swing 2006 their way:

There's another part of the 2006 Republican strategy. This spring and summer, Republican leaders in the Senate and House plan to bring up a series of issues that are popular with the Republican base of voters. The aim is to stir conservative voters and spur turnout in the November election. Just last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner and Whip Roy Blunt met with leaders of conservative groups to talk about these issues. House Republicans, for their part, intend to seek votes on measures such as the Bush-backed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a bill allowing more public expression of religion, another requiring parental consent for women under 18 to get an abortion, legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, a bill to outlaw human cloning, and another that would require doctors to consider fetal pain before performing an abortion.

Call me crazy, but in the middle of a war, one that's been hyped for three years as the answer to everything and that's served to justify a series of illegal actions by the executive branch, I really don't think this is going to work this time out. Sure, it worked to some extent in 2004 (although the poli sci research I've seen so far suggests it was not nearly as effective as the conventional wisdom holds), but that was before the public had turned on Bush and his war. It's one thing to try this when people are giving you the benefit of the doubt. Its another thing entirely when they're not.

The really odd part, however, is that Republicans seem to understand this on some level. It's not as if they're about to abandon the war. Rather, they're going to use wedge issues along with the war to draw out contrasts between the parties. It sounds more than a little schizophrenic to me, but take a look and decide for yourself:

Republicans have done little to hide their strategy. At the Southern Republican Leadership conference in Memphis recently, Mehlman spoke repeatedly about "choice" in the 2006 election. Voters, he said, "can see the difference between leaders committed to winning this war [on terror] and politicians who will say anything to win the next election. The war on terror is not the only area where we face an urgent choice in 2006." Mehlman asked, rhetorically, if voters "want the chairman of the tax-writing committee in the House to be someone who said that tax increases would spur the economy. Do you want the speaker of the House to be someone who said, less than a year after 9/11, 'I don't really consider ourselves at war.'" That, Mehlman said, "is the choice we will make in 242 days." Mehlman is convinced the emphasis on choice will work. "The ultimate referendum election is a presidential reelection," he says. "If you can make that into a choice election, you can make a midterm election into a choice election."

How will gay marriage, human cloning, and abortion do anything other than muddle their message about the war? Is there anyone out there dumb enough to think that human cloning is even remotely related to national security? I really don't see this working. And neither does Barnes:

Mehlman's confidence notwithstanding, will Republican efforts to keep the election debate from focusing on Bush really work? The media undoubtedly won't play along. Some Republicans are bound to trash Bush, figuring that it will give them the best chance of winning. Worse, if Bush falters badly, a referendum on him may be unavoidable. Still, is there a better strategy for Republicans in what looks like an unfriendly year for them? If there is, I haven't heard of it.

I have a strong suspicion that they've gone to the well one too many times with this. Katrina, Dubai Ports World, Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham - they've all combined to change the way people see this administration. And I don't care how hard Republicans in Congress try, they're just not going to be able to separate themselves from Bush. Particularly not if they choose to run on the same wedge issues Bush used in 2004.

If this is the best they've got, November could be a very, VERY good month for the Democratic Party.

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