Desperate Times, Desperate Dems

What will Democrats do about it? They'll aggressively employ their three primary smears to increase turnout among those who consider it a virtual crime to vote for the other candidate. Those smears are their three R's: religion, race, and the rich. They have worked well enough in the past to prevent critical, lasting damage. They will again if not effectively countered.

They will trot the oft-cited "war on women" charge against any GOP candidate with any kind of personal or legislative record indicating adherence to Christian values. The left and the press both fervently believe that anyone with such a record is "anti-woman." They have been all too successful in convincing their base that anyone who believes that a baby in the womb has a right to live is an extremist, even though a recent CNN poll showed that 58 percent of Americans oppose abortion in most or all cases. Sadly, the "war on women" appeal seems to have a near hypnotic effect on many single women under 35.

Republican candidates need to visibly turn this argument around to what will get the vast non-hypnotized majority of women to the polls. Now that they've seen a bit of how it works, women's opposition to Obamacare has skyrocketed. Each and every Democrat who has ever supported Obama, regardless of their current distancing attempts, owns his failing scheme. Beyond that, the six-year Pelosi-Obama-Reid economy has done greater harm to women than to men.  It also wouldn't hurt to point out that the White House itself is a pack of hypocrites on "equal pay."

Of the three smears, "racism" is the most tired, but still potentially effective. Just ask Paul Ryan. Even making valid observations about the tragedy of inner-city crime, failed urban public schools, and broken families exposes you to being called a racist. Heaven help you if you propose coherent, workable solutions like charter schools and education vouchers.

The best riposte to the racism charge is also economic. The GOP needs to hammer home the fact that in the four decades until Obamanomics came along, black household income had been catching up with the national average — not satisfactorily, to be sure, but at least moving in the right direction. All of those gains have disappeared, and brutally, while Barack Obama has occupied the Oval Office. It's also a near certainty that Obamacare will disproportionately harm blacks' and Hispanics' jobs prospects by adding huge amounts to the cost of taking on relatively low-skilled employees. If you doubt me, ask casino workers in Vegas.

When all else fails, Democrats will try to tie their opponents to the rich, the 1 percent, and, in Alinksyite fashion, to the evil omnipotent, intimidating Koch brothers. Please. The Koch campaign apparatus ranked 77th overall among political donors in the 2012 election cycle, well behind over a dozen unions and scores of leftist outfits and corporations.

So obsessed is the left that it even trotted out its Koch critique in the recent Florida-13 special congressional election won by a Republican in an upset. There's only one problem: The Koch brothers spent no money there.

Whether or not the Koch brothers or their affiliated groups give them money, after what will be six years of statist failure, Republican candidates should make no apologies for free-market principles — and they should commit to repealing the statists' worst disaster to date: Obamacare.

(Artwork based on a modified Shutterstock.com image.)