G.O.P’s 2012 Strategy Puts Focus on Timing ...

This time, Republicans are taking a different approach against President Obama, who opens his re-election campaign this week. The road toward ousting an incumbent always runs uphill, but Mr. Obama’s adversaries are trying to level their odds in two significant ways.

The first: a delay by top candidates in entering the race. Aside from conserving energy and resources, that would distance contenders like Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts from the unpredictable budget showdown between Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

The second: an effort by party leaders to slow down the anointment of a nominee once delegate selection begins early next year. Instead of a flash verdict produced by tiny electorates in the states that vote earliest, the Republican National Committee seeks a longer competition to battle-test its standard-bearer the way Hillary Rodham Clinton tested Mr. Obama in 2008.

“It makes for a stronger nominee at the end,” said Ed Gillespie, a former party chairman and senior aide to President George W. Bush. Considering that incumbent presidents seeking re-election since 1900 have won 14 times and lost only 5, Republicans need such a nominee.

Right seeks edge in 'oppo' wars

Tired of being on the receiving end of damaging stories developed by liberal groups such as Media Matters and the Center for American Progress, conservatives are looking to launch their own opposition research army to dig up dirt on the left.

In the last year, a mix of big-money Republican-allied independent groups, tea party non-profits, guerilla videographers, and some scrappy bloggers and talk show hosts has created a raft of fledgling investigative research and reporting efforts to uncover and publicize alleged corruption, flip-flops and plain-old gaffes by Democrats and their allies headed into the 2012 elections.

The effort attracted notice last month when one of the deepest-pocketed conservative groups, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies – or Crossroads GPS – launched an initiative called Wikicountability to crowd-source investigations of President Barack Obama’s administration by collecting government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. As a start, Crossroads GPS pushed three relatively low-impact findings based on FOIAs – including that $3.66 million in taxpayer money was used to pay for an ad promoting last year’s Democratic healthcare overhaul.

“The left is still beating the right at the game of doing investigative reporting, but I think the right has finally realized both the need and the problem,” said Erick Erickson, editor of Red State, an influential conservative blog that occasionally features or aggregates researched reporting by conservatives critical of the left. “After a couple of years of thinking the right was dropping the ball, I finally think the train is moving and building up momentum.”

Copying from another thread.

Politico, April 3, 2011

The best GOP strategy is to fund a third party on the left.

The we-need-somebody-else chatter is reminiscent of fretting among Republicans four years ago that ultimately resulted in former Sen. Fred Thompson’s much-hyped but ill-fated candidacy and the unease Democrats felt eight years ago when their worries about Howard Dean’s general election prospects prompted much pining for then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

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There were politicians who are putting off decisions (Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels), politicians who’ve said they won’t run (former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie), individuals who aren’t even politicians (Gen. David Petraeus) and individuals who aren’t even named (two members cited a to-be-determined business executive or military leader).

The float of Petraeus, currently commander of the war in Afghanistan and rumored to be the next CIA chief, highlights the GOP’s quandary. He has repeatedly said he won’t be a candidate, even citing Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous formulation, but that hasn’t lessened the ardor among some of his Republican admirers. It’s an indication of the view among some party stalwarts that they’ll need someone better than a conventional pol to beat an incumbent president expected to raise a historic sum of money. (See also: David Petraeus, Joe Scarborough eyed for '12)

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“I talked to Gen. [Dwight] Eisenhower, and he’s thinking about it,” Roberts joked. “He thinks his age might be a factor but, if necessary, he’d come back and run.”