THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE TO SELL IS FEAR ITSELF – AT 7:41 A.M. ET:  A desperate Democratic Party is going into major fear mode, as Fox News reports:

The White House is pushing back on a report that President Obama's advisers are contemplating an all-out ad war to discredit Republicans by way of the Tea Party. But with the primaries now behind them, top Democratic officials have already made the Tea Party fear factor an integral part of their messaging.

Amid mounting predictions that Democrats could lose at least one chamber of Congress, a rhetorical campaign has been underway for weeks to cast the Republican Party as driven by the "extremist" faction of its conservative wing.

Warnings about the direction of the GOP got louder after dark-horse candidate Christine O'Donnell beat moderate Rep. Mike Castle for the Delaware Senate nomination last week and conservative Joe Miller beat incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska primary -- prompting Murkowski to launch a write-in campaign.

The New York Times reported Monday that Obama's advisers are considering whether to launch an ad campaign nationwide to portray the Tea Partiers as the new leaders of the Republican Party.

COMMENT:  This is pretty much the Democratic script, but Republicans aren't taking it seriously enough.  Marginalizing an opponent often works, or works well enough to affect close elections.  It works unless the target fights back, which the GOP must now do.  Every attack must be answered and buried.  The worst thing the Repubicans can do now is sit on their lead, which in some races is only razor-thin.

September 21, 2010