WASTE OF BREATH?

O'REILLY AND HANNITY


I've posted recently about Sean Hannity's and Bill O'Reilly's attacks on Nancy Pelosi in an attempt to demonize her and make her supposedly less palatable as the new House Speaker, assuming the Dems gain a majority in the House. Hannity feels that making certain Pelosi does not become Speaker is something worth dying for while O'Reilly fears for the very future of this nation with a liberal married mother of five at the helm of the House.
But Del Ali, posting at Political Wire, thinks these types of attacks are pointless:

In October 1994, the Democratic leadership began attacking Congressman Newt Gingrich with both ads and on Sunday morning talking head programs with a simple theme of, "You the voters may be angry at President Clinton and our failure to come up with national health care and our corruption in the House leadership among those involved with the Post Office Scandal, but can you imagine a Speaker Gingrich? In 2006, the Republican leadership has begun attacking Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi with both ads and on the Sunday morning talking head programs as well by telling voters that nothing could be worse than a Speaker Pelosi in spite of the Page Scandal, Iraq, etc.

The GOP leadership may want to seriously consider dropping this strategy because of two reasons. First, Pelosi is no where near as polarizing as Gingrich was in 1994. In fact, even after Gingrich's unfavorable rating sky rocketed after he made his infamous claim that Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who murdered her two children and then blamed an African American man for it was the fault of Democrats in power, the Democrats had their heads handed to them on election night. Number two, Pelosi does not have the name recognition or the high profile that Newt Gingrich had nationally. Our polling shows that at this same moment in time, Gingrich's name recognition nationally was 25 points higher than Nancy Pelosi's. In the end, voter disgust towards Democrats in 1994 superceded any feelings voters may have had about Newt Gingrich. In fact, Gingrich's unfavorable rating was 12 points higher nationally than Pelosi's.

Now, I doubt that the bobbleheads on the right will heed this information, but it is interesting to see history repeating itself; at least one part of history. Let's hope that the other part - namely the majority party being thrown out on their collective asses come election day - also hold to form.