By MICHAEL SHEAR - September 23, 2010, 6:56 PM
The idea behind Thursday morning’s news conference by House Republican leaders was not to provide ammunition for Democrats.
But that may be what happened.
Even as Representative John Boehner, the Republican leader, was trumpeting the “Pledge for America,” he may have inadvertently played right into the hands of the White House and Democratic candidates.
In answer to a question from a reporter about the party’s position on social issues, and with the cameras running, Mr. Boehner said: “We are not going to be any different than what we’ve been.”
Those are the words President Obama and his allies have been trying to put in the Republicans’ mouths throughout the summer. The president is especially fond of saying that the Republicans running for Congress want “the next two years to look like the eight years before I took office.”
In speech after speech, Mr. Obama has tried to link the Republican party of today with the policies of the past. At a New York fundraiser at the Roosevelt Hotel this week, Mr. Obama said it again.
“It’d be one thing if the Republican candidates looked back at the last decade and they said, “You know what? Our policies didn’t work. We ended up in a terrible recession. Let’s try something new’,” he said. “If they were championing your issues. Right? And you said, well, you know, maybe — maybe we’ve got an option here.”
Mr. Boehner’s quote may have been about social issues, not the economy, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone to find it showing up in the president’s stump speeches anyway, or in a television ad for a Democratic candidate or two.
As Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, wrote shortly after Mr. Boehner’s comment: “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
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