The Plum Line

* Where we're headed: Brian Beutler predicts the GOP will use its gains in November to pressure Obama and Dems to abandon the stimulus.

Which brings up a point I've been meaning to make: If the GOP does make big gains, there will be a war among Dems about what lessons should be drawn (Dems lost because they embraced an overly liberal and ambitious agenda in a center-right nation!) and how Dems should proceed. It could get ugly.

* Blue Dog Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin's latest spot doesn't mention that she's a Dem, trumpets her tough stance aganst "liberal leaders," and attacks Washington's alleged disdain for "flyover country."

* How should Dems handled the spin war over the Bush tax cuts? Jonathan Bernstein suggests Dems should stop talking about the expiring "Bush tax cuts" and instead refer to the "Republican tax increases" that are "scheduled to go into effect."

The idea here is that it's Dems who want to cut taxes, by keeping the policy in place for everyone but the rich.

* Sam Stein talks to gay rights advocates who give Ken Mehlman a few pointers on coming out.

* Today's award for intellectual consistency goes to Matthew Duss, a strong proponent of the "mosque," for insisting that supporters must refrain from arguing that opposing it "stabs our troops in the back."

* Takedown of the day: Joe Klein versus Clifford May, over the "mosque." Note that May uses that same old Krauthammer dodge, arguing that terrorist attacks are carried out in Islam's name.

* Fox News has been lavishing a huge amount of coverage on Dems who oppose the "mosque," arguing it was bad for the Democratic Party, showing yet again that there's nothing to gain from political cowardice.

* Alan Simpson and his "tits" gaffe are fast becoming a focal point for lefties who are really worried that Obama will compromise and cut Social Security.

* Fact check of the day: Jed Lewison dissects Sharron Angle's new ad, point by point. Cliff notes version: "Angle blames Reid for Bush's failed policies."

* America in the 21st Century: Dozens of high-profile Christian leaders feel the need to issue a statement defending Obama's profession of faith. That'll only make the number who think he's a Muslim go up...

* The AFL-CIO throws harpoons at the Great White 'Cuda.

* And Duncan Black explains Glenn Beck: "He appears to be an insane megalomanic who is self-aware enough to be aware of that fact. It's what allows him to be a huckster clown on top of it."

What else is happening?

Now that the Florida general election for Senate is under way, one interesting dynamic that's taking shape is that Republican Marco Rubio and Dem Kendrick Meek each have a common interest in tacitly pushing the same kinds of stories to damage Charlie Crist.

Both campaigns will be trying to unearth evidence of Crist's past lockstep loyalty to the GOP cause, but each for different reasons.

Case in point: A Florida operative digs up and sends over this video of Crist in October of 2008 claiming that Sarah Palin would do "a great job" as president, and gushing about her qualifications. This isn't going to help Crist in the battle with Meek for Dem support:

Here's a transcript:

QUESTION: Are you fully confident that if anything were to happen to John McCain, Sarah Palin could take over as president from day one?

CRIST: I think she'd do a great job. I mean, realize that, you know, she really is the only executive that's running -- the only one who has been the head of the government in Alaska. She's held executive positions as a mayor, executive position as a governor. Made those kinds of decisions. I think she's ready.

Meek's campaign will grab onto this video because it's imperative for him to consolidate Democratic support in order to be viable. So Meek's camp will point to this as proof that Crist's a loyal Republican at heart, and that his conversion to independent was born of expedience. Meek trailed both Crist and Rubio in pre-primary polls, and the only way he can be viable is by poaching Dem support from Crist.

Also: The worry for the Meek camp is that national Dems may worry he can't win. They may tacitly decide that the best way to deny the GOP the seat is to hope that Crist wins and caucuses with Dems. Previous Crist quotes like this one about Palin give Meek a powerful argument to dissuade national Dems from tacitly abandoning him and hoping for a Crist victory.

Paradoxically, video like this also helps Rubio. In light of Crist's latter-day conversion to indy, it's grist for Rubio's message that Crist is ideologically opportunistic and will say and do whatever it takes to win. What's more, the Rubio team is also happy for Crist to bleed Dem support, since it reduces his overall vote total. A story like this works for both Rubio and Meek.

It's going to be a wild race.

In terms of pure political effectiveness, the latest ad from Sharron Angle seems like a pretty strong spot:

The ad mocks the Obama/Dem vow of change, tying Harry Reid to Nancy Pelosi and President Obama by depicting them as locked in an idealistic but doomed policy romance:

It may be the most tragic love story of all time. Pelosi, Obama, and Harry Reid. Together, they promised to change America. And boy did they. Taxpayer funded bailouts for Wall Street. A $787 billion stimulus that failed. And spending so reckless it's led to record deficits and skyrocketing unemployment.

The claim that the stimulus failed, of course, is belied by analyses from respected economists, as well as from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, suggesting that we'd be in a lot worse shape without it. And the notion that government spending is what produced Nevada's high unemployment rate is not one that many mainstream economists would accept, either.

Also: The gentle mocking tone of the ad seems designed to cut against Reid's ongoing efforts to shine a very harsh light on Angle as extreme, deranged, and dangerous.

(H/T Jon Ralston)

It isn't every day that Democrats go out of their way to hype Glenn Beck's activities, but Dems think the Beck rally scheduled for this Saturday -- on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech -- gives them an opportunity to push the line that the GOP is hostage to intolerants and extremists.

Dems are gleefully noting to reporters that Beck intends to rally the faithful from the Lincoln Memorial -- the very spot where King gave his speech 47 years ago. And with turnout estimates running as high as 300,000, Dems say they hope they can wrest some political advantage from what they hope will amount to a massive show of Tea Party force that's rife with ugly Obama-bashing.

Though there are good reasons to wonder how effective it is, Dems have doubled down on a strategy of relentlessly elevating Tea Party whack-jobbery to turn moderates independents against the GOP. Several Dems cheerfully noted to me this morning that a raucus Tea Party rally staged on the anniversary of one of the turning points in the Civil Rights movement can only help in this regard.

To buttress the case that the rally is bad for the GOP, Dems are circulating a report in this morning's Post claiming that officials with the Republican party committees are distancing themselves from the rally:

"In general, people coming to Washington, being organized and active is a good thing," said Doug Heye, a spokesman for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele.

"But I gotta be honest with you -- I don't know about any Glenn Beck event."

Given the awful job numbers and the nation's other myriad problems, it's hard to imagine that using the Beck rally to tar the GOP will do much to alter the Dems' electoral fortunes. But the sight of Beck trying to coopt the legacy of King while crazed Tea Partyers bash the first African American president in the ugliest of terms may well go down as an iconic moment in the history of this movement.

UPDATE, 1:06 p.m.: The DNC's Hari Sevugan goes after the RNC:

What is it about Glenn Beck events that the RNC is so worried about? Is there something that occurs at tea party rallies that they don't want to be a part of? We're certainly curious, as I'm sure are Glenn Beck and his tea party cohorts.

UPDATE, 1:50 p.m.: The DCCC's Ryan Rudominer also responds:

"Republicans for well over the past year have firmly embraced the tea party and some of these right-wing fringe groups that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have rallied around, and these are becoming serious campaign liabilities in the general election. The fact that they're trying to plead ignorance is just completely absurd."

Yesterday I noted here that some House Dems in tough districts are now aggressively distancing themselves from the Obama/Pelosi agenda, with some Dems taking direct shots at the President and the Speaker.

Blue Dog Dem Bobby Bright of Alabama has raised this to a new level, joking to constitutents that Pelosi might "get sick and die" before he has to support her again for Speaker, a local reporter tells me.

The Montgomery Advertiser reports that Bright, who is under fire for supporting Pelosi for Speaker in the past, joked to some voters that Pelosi might fall ill and pass away. The Advertiser only paraphrased Bright's remarks.

So I called the reporter, Cosby Woodruff, and he gave me Bright's actual quote.

"He had been asked a question from the audience about his support for Pelosi," Woodruff told me. "He said, `Let's wait until that comes up. He listed a long list of reasons why Pelosi might not run for Speaker of the House."

"The last one was, `heck, she might even get sick and die,'" Woodruff told me.

Jeez. Bright must have decided that Pelosi is pretty toxic in his district.

Okay, that headline is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Harry Reid's latest ad strings together a host of Angle-isms to paint her as, well, a dangerous psychopath:

What's interesting is that even though Angle did say all these things, and even though Reid has widely disseminated her comments throughout the state, the race is still very close. It's a measure of how stiff a headwind Reid faces.

It's routinely pointed out that Reid's reelection chances turn on whether he can render Angle an unacceptable alternative. But the rubs is that given how disliked Reid and the Obama agenda are in Nevada, he needs to render her really, truly, horrifyingly unacceptable. If the stuff Angle has already said isn't enough to do that, it's hard to imagine what it would take.

(Via Jon Ralston.)

* Where would unemployment be without the stimulus? Good read: Dylan Matthews marshalls charts and graphs to show that it would be much, much higher, even if unemployment isn't actually falling.

* White House keeps bashing Boehner: Obama advisers seem like they really want to make sure John Boehner's dress rehearsal as House Speaker doesn't go well. The latest: The White House weighs in with a long fact check of Boehner's "awkward dance" on the stimulus.

* Dems admit the House is in peril? Mulitiple anonymous Democratic insiders decide it's a good idea to tell Politico that the midterms are looking much worse than you thought.

* And yet: Senior Democratic strategists tell Reid Wilson that they think the GOP won't come close to taking back the House, and Wilson lays out multiple reasons why that may be so. Who to believe?

* Cowed? The White House is not going to fire Alan Simpson, the chair of Obama's fiscal commission, for saying Social Security is "a milk cow with 310 million tits," and Paul Krugman says it shows Dems are "cowed" by the right.

* Polling the "mosque": Still another poll finds a large majority believes a "mosque" near Ground Zero is not "appropriate," though a large majority also says the developers have the "right" to build it. What all these polls show is how effectively the right has framed the debate over this controversy.

* Also: Thirty nine percent have an unfavorable impression of Islam, versus only 24 percent who have a favorable one, while 37 percent don't have an opinion.

* Bad economy spawns intolerance and skapegoating? Robert Reich says the controversies over illegal immigration, the "mosque," and Obama's faith are all signs that "economic fear is the handmaiden of intolerance."

* Convoluted argument of the day: New York's governor says the stabbing of the Muslim cabbie shows we need to move Cordoba House.

Ben Smith sums up: "The argument here: The mosque must be moved because its opponents are crazed, violent bigots who need to be appeased."

* Dems face a dilemma in Florida: Dems will be forced to make a tough choice: Put all their chips on Kendrick Meek, or quietly bet on a Charlie Crist win as the only way to deny the GOP the seat.

* Regrets: Former RNC chair Ken Mehlman comes out of the closet and says he'll support gay marriage, and admits that if he'd done so sooner he might have been able to stop his party from pursuing an anti-gay agenda.

* And: Jake Tapper notes that in 2005, Mehlman said he didn't know whether homosexuality is a choice, and defended George W. Bush's push for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

* One track mind: And don't go saying the only idea GOP Rep. Mike Pence has for improving the economy is tax cuts. He's got another idea: Tax cuts.

What else is happening?

* Michael Bloomberg, in keeping with his inexplicable desire to also represent his Muslim constituents, invites the Muslim cabbie/stabbing victim to City Hall.

* Shocker of the day: Fox News declines to run that ad calling attention to News Corporation's $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association.

* Sharron Angle's campaign, responding to Harry Reid's criticism of her agreement that there are "domestic enemies" within Congress, blasts Reid for "putting words in her mouth."

* But Reid keeps hammering away, and the "domestic enemies" story is a big one out in Nevada.

* America in the 21st century: Religious leaders are growing alarmed at the right's increasing use of "sharia" as a slur.

* It's buried deep in a column imploring that John McCain step forth and save the republic, but unless I'm misreading this, David Broder has come out and denounced the GOP for unprincipled obstructionism:

One of the conspicuous failings in the past few years has been the absence of a second party making principled decisions on when to support and when to oppose the president. McCain has the best opportunity -- and the best credentials -- to restore this.

* Aaron Blake has an interesting look at how the drug problem in eastern Kentucky ballooned into a political problem for Rand Paul.

* Marco Rubio's first general election ad sands away the harsh Tea-Party edge with soft music, soft lighting, and talk of the American dream.

* The right wing's attacks on Imam Feisal Adbul Rauf have descended into comical incoherence and self parody.

* No, liberals are not ideologically committed to growing government for its own sake.

* Obama will deliver his big Iraq speech next week from the Oval Office.

* Dems wanted to face Tea Party-backed Senate candidate Ken Buck because he's extreme, but polls show he has a sizable lead over incumbent Dem Senator Michael Bennet.

* Nate Silver, now finally at The New York Times, forecasts that Dems are in "increasing jeopardy" of losing their majority in the Senate.

* Obama held a conference call today with his economic advisers, all of whom still appear to be employed despite John Boehner's demand that they all be fired.

* And maybe Mitt Romney should sign up Sylvester Stallone as a foreign policy adviser to his 2012 campaign.

What else is happening?

Little by little, we're starting to see more House Dems running ads distancing them from President Obama and Nancy Pelosi -- and even directly taking them on. Some of the spots bash the Obama/Dem agenda in ways that echo GOP talking points.

Here, for instance, is a new spot from Blue Dog Dem Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, which not only trumpets his vote against health reform, but also proclaims his willingness to "stand up" to Obama and Pelosi:

And here is a new spot from Blue Dog Dem Bobby Bright of Alabama, which trumpets his vote against the "massive government healthcare" bill, and proclaims that he's an "independent conservative":

Meanwhile, a Republican sends along video of a new ad that Blue Dog Dem Glenn Nye of Virginia is running, proclaiming his vote against the health care bill and his willingness to go "against his own party." And Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana has run spots blasting Obama as part of the "Washington crowd" and hitting "Nancy Pelosi's energy tax."

Dem leaders have signaled to individual lawmakers that it's okay for them to do what they have to do in order to establish distance from the Dem leadership in Washington. But this is a dicey balancing act. While doing this may help Dems survive in tough districts, it gives Republicans who want to nationalize the elections fresh ammo to push their larger message that the Obama/Dem agenda is politically toxic and has failed.

Yesterday I noted here that the war over Cordoba House revealed something that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: The degree to which the Cheney-ites are winning the battle over the future direction of GOP foreign policy.

It occurs to me I left out a major data point underscoring this dynamic: Former President Bush's complete silence on the "mosque" controversy, which only reinforces the sense that the Cheney-ites are setting the agenda for much of the GOP.

Now, via Ben Smith, Bush's silence has gotten so conspicuous that a former Bush administration official, Ken Adelman, a prominent Iraq War backer, is now calling on him to come out in support of Cordoba House.

"I really think that the United States should stick with its values of tolerance and understanding and support for moderate Islamic leaders," Adelman said. "And I'm a little disappointed in President Bush, while we're talking about him, that he hasn't come out."

Adelman added that "now would be a wonderful time" for Bush to reiterate his position "for acceptance of Islamic leadership" that is "moderate" and "responsible."

Such talk, though, sounds almost quaint in comparison to the rhetoric we're hearing from leading Republicans right now. On the "mosque," and even on other issues such as torture and Mirandizing terror suspects, many leading elected officials in Congress, and many of the 2012 GOP hopefuls, are all reading from a script that may as well have been written, and in a sense is being written, by Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol. The only Republicans you hear speaking out in favor of the "mosque" are former Bushies who don't have influence within the party, and aren't running for office any time soon.

So here's the question: If Bush did come out in support of the Islamic center (which he isn't going to do), or if he did call on Republicans to moderate their rhetoric, would any leading Republicans listen to him? I doubt it. No point in even bothering.