...more than anything, I actually want to see some spirit. The Republicans have clearly made a decision to destroy Obama's Presidency through endless fearmongering and fauxtrage. They started a bonfire over this Van Jones hiring and the White House let the hit squad walk all over them. This didn't appease the right but whet their appetites for more. The only way to fight such bullying, such blatant hatred, is through showing some toughness.

First of all you have to decide if you really want to win. If you just want to spend your time debating hypotheticals and dreaming of how swell things could be while weaving yourself a safety net of emergency qualifiers in case things don't go the way you planned, go get a job at the fucking Brookings Institution. But if you're gonna go to ideological war, then go to ideological war. And if you are going to fight this war you have to ask yourself "what would Dick Cheney do?"

Never apologize.
Never admit weakness.
Never concede points.
Never defend.
Always attack.

You have to remember that, in the case of the Glenn Beck conservative wing (a group of people who make the Dittoheads look like Quakers), you are dealing with a crazy salad of stupid people (and let's quit excusing them as "low information voters"...they're dumbshits), lunatics, assholes, racists, political performance artists, opportunists, and the kind of people who make eugenics seem desirable if not downright necessary.

These are not the people you need or want. You want the mushy middle and the mushy middle loves people who project strength and power. It makes them feel safe. They like being on the winning team. Power and winning intoxicates them. If they write for the Politico, it gives them boners and they'll write anything you want them to. But these people do not respond in the quite the same way to squishy papering over of defeat.

Many of those who have abandoned Obama of late are doing so because they have openly questioned his leadership and resolve. They don't know if he's willing to fight for them. They aren't so concerned with the details, but they want to know that they have a champion for their interests. So act like a winner. Show confidence and not even-handedness. Show the spark of life.