Andrew Sullivan passes along Dave Weigel's assessment of the Democrats' message options for the 2010 elections:
[D]o you break out the defibrillator and try to convince people that their local economy is turning around because of legislation X, Y, and Z, or do you rev up the base by saying that the new Republican majority wants to use the bad economy as an excuse for more tax cuts and deep entitlement cuts? Clearly the Democrats are opening the second door, hence all of the attention on Paul Ryan's austerity "roadmap."
For starters, these two tactics aren't mutually exclusive. Second, I don't understand the surprise that this would happen -- sure, they were hoping for an economic rebound, but Democrats have been arguing for months now that their electoral hopes depend on voters choosing between two competing visions, rather than viewing the elections as a referendum on the results of Democratic policies, most of which will not be felt for years. But most important: Does anyone believe that Republicans won't push for tax and entitlement cuts should they gain the majority?
There's nothing wrong with highlighting your opponents' positions. Even if the economy were going gangbusters and people were throwing health-care celebration parties, the Democrats would be well within their rights to point out that Republicans haven't changed their policy prescriptions as a result of the crisis but simply doubled-down on them.
-- Tim Fernholz
