GOP SHARPLY DIVIDED ON BEST METHOD TO SPREAD FEAR ABOUT OBAMA
By R J Shulman
WASHINGTON - As the November Presidential election looms nearer, Republicans are still undecided regarding the best strategy to use to discredit Democratic front runner, Barack Obama. “Republicans are split almost 50-50 whether to portray Obama as a scary black man or as a scary Muslim,” said Bill Windham, a GOP spokesman. “We are not sure why the Reverend Wright controversy had no traction,” said Windham, “but tying Obama to his rouge preacher is a tactic that had to drop from the strategy race.”

“Our polls show that Republicans in the South, especially among men over 40 favor using the race card,” said John Zogby of the Zogby International, “while younger Republican voters and Republican women prefer smearing Obama with the Muslim label. There will be some positives for the GOP that Obama’s name sounds like an Islamic terrorist, but it may be hard to convince any American with half a brain that Obama is a Muslim in light of his long term relationship with Reverend Wright, a Christian preacher. On the other hand,” Zogby said, “the race card usually works.”

GOP insiders are worried that the party split will last all the way to the Minneapolis convention in August, not giving the Republicans enough time before the November election to whip up the proper amount of hatred for Obama. “We will need to use fear on steroids against Barack,” said Harvey Schlemp, a GOP party leader, “to distract the American voter from what they should really be afraid of – crazy McCain being the one to answer the White House phone at 3AM.”

“It’s going to come down to the vote of the party loyalists,” said Karl Rove speaking on Hannity’s America on Fox, “it will up to the Super Bigots to put either divisions of race or religion over the top.”