Today's GOP

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

...The biggest failing of the GOP, IMHO, is that after many years of this kind of negative campaigning, they've yet to find away to effectively respond to it...

While I agree with a number of your points and found your post informative, this deserves to called out as BS. For the most part, the negative campaigning we're experiencing now was largely developed by the Atwaters and Roves of the GOP (Willie Horton, McCain's black love child in SC, swiftboating, Obama as Muslim/Kenyan/Soci@list ...).

For better or worse, what's occurring this time is that Obama's team has chosen to fight fire with fire (or slime with slime, as it were) and the GOP has rarely been on the receiving end of the kind of negativity that they themselves pioneered and routinely use in campaigns.

Calling on Romney to release his tax records is pretty much fair game compared to the items I cited parenthetically above, and is an effective proxy for the conversation about the fairness of our tax structure, particularly when the Ryan budget would reportedly result in Romney paying 0.82% income tax if enacted.