GOP plan to reclaim White House will turn Obama's words against him

Jan 4 2012

The Washington Post reports on the Republican battle plan, which will undoubtedly include Obama's past claims about lowering the cost of insurance premiums. The Associated Press reports on how the GOP primary race has yet to "fully test" candidate Mitt Romney's health care record. Also, The Hill reports that the Republican presidential field appears to be "moving to the right" on abortion issues.

The Washington Post: GOP's Election Battle Plan: Use Obama's Own Words Against Him
Republican officials say they will leverage the party's newly catalogued video library containing every publicly available utterance from Obama since his 2008 campaign. Television and Internet ads will juxtapose specific Obama promises of job gains, homeowner assistance, help for people in poverty, lower health insurance premiums and stricter White House ethics standards against government data and news clippings that paint a different reality (Wallsten, 1/1).

The Associated Press: Analysis: GOP Race Has Yet To Fully Test Romney
Mitt Romney's surprisingly easy rise to the top of Iowa presidential polls, aided by his GOP rivals' in-fighting, masks vulnerabilities he will have to confront eventually. Even if he wins Tuesday's caucus, Romney has yet to excite his party's restless conservative base. And his rivals' focus on each other has let Romney skate along with minimal focus on his contentious health care record and his changed positions on abortion, gay rights and other issues since his days as Massachusetts governor (Babington, 1/2).

The Hill: Republican Candidates Move To The Right On Abortion Ahead Of Caucuses
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's "transformation" on abortion rights is the starkest rightward shift among the Republican candidates vying for Iowa's social conservatives, but he's hardly alone in targeting abortion rights as part of his campaign strategy. Trailing in the polls behind conservative candidate Rick Santorum, Texas Perry told an Iowa pastor he's now opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Four of the remaining GOP presidential hopefuls -; Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) -; have joined Perry in signing the Susan B. Anthony List's "pro-life pledge" (Pecquet, 12/31).