GOP’s attack on Democrats aims straight at Harry Reid

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

WASHINGTON - With Congress' approval ratings sinking, Republicans are trying to seize the moment with a full-scale attack on Democratic leadership, starting with Harry Reid.

The Republican National Committee sent an e-mail Tuesday to thousands of Nevada voters highlighting the harsh language Reid used to criticize President Bush during the weekend.

Senate Republicans are preparing an August recess packet of talking points that senators can use to deride what the party is labeling the "Post Office Congress" - a Senate that has spent countless hours debating Iraq at the expense of other legislation, with the exception of renaming 20 post offices.

"Reid's the one who's making the decisions - he's the one who will bear the most heat," a Senate Republican leadership aide said. "He is a legitimate target, given how things have been functioning the past six months."

RNC spokesman Paul Lindsay said Reid calling Bush a "liar" and a top military leader "incompetent" is turning off Americans . "The more Harry Reid opens his mouth with outrageous political rhetoric, the more the Democratic Congress sinks in the polls," Lindsay said.

The effects might not be immediately damaging to Reid, who is not up for re election until 2010. But the strategy of hammering away at the majority leader mirrors the work Republicans did in 2004 to dislodge then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle from office.

Liberal bloggers saw great irony in Republicans going after Reid for criticizing the highly unpopular president or trying to end the war in Iraq.

No sooner had the RNC blast gone out Tuesday than DailyKos and others riffed on how the Republican attack could serve as a fundraiser for Democrats.

"I'm ecstatic that they've decided to give us a helping hand by reminding people that 1) Democrats oppose Bush, his lies and his corruption, and 2) Democrats want to get out of Iraq," DailyKos wrote.

The attacks on Reid reflect the substantial PR war that is raging in Washington to define the new Congress as it popularity sinks to 26 percent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll, after six months in office.

Republicans portray Democrats as having little to show for their time in office. They criticize Reid for repeatedly holding votes on the Democratic proposal to withdraw from Iraq as nothing more than a partisan campaign grab to put Republicans on record as standing by Bush's strategy. Senate Democrats say Republicans are in such disarray after being booted from the majority in last year's election that their only strategy is to block Democratic goals and change the subject from the unpopular war.

Republicans "don't want to talk about the issues important to the American public," Reid spokesman Jon Summers said. "They don't want to talk about Iraq. They don't want to talk about children's health insurance, which they oppose What do you do when you're on the wrong side of the issue? You distract."