Calling Out the "Extreme, Twisted" Republican Party

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog wonders if the Democrats will have the sense to nationalize the presidential election by tying the albatross of Rethuglican extremism around every Rethuglican running for office:

"Republicans have a radio/TV/Internet noise machine that works round the clock finding people to demonize -- and linking every one of them to all Democrats. Everyone from Rosie O'Donnell to Frances Fox Piven, everyone from Common to Saul Alinsky, is a demonization target, and then every one of them is linked to your local Democratic officeholder or office-seeker. And so your Fox-loving neighbor thinks there really isn't an inch of ideological daylight between your Democratic congressman and some New Black Panther uttering empty threats on a local radio show no one listens to except right-wingers. Your low-info swing-voting neighbor may believe this, too. In any case, the evil-party narrative is already in place.

"Democrats haven't even begun the process of arguing that the entire right, or even a substantial part of it, is scary and extreme and beyond the pale, and there's no reason to believe that Democrats will ever do this. They may be prepared to portray Romney as a right-wing extremist, and that may be an effective strategy, but they'll never portray the entire GOP (accurately) as rotten to the core.

"Or maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. Otherwise, Romney may be defeated but fail to drag the party down with him, because the defeat will be of him personally, not of his entire extreme, twisted party."