Republicans have found their boogeyman for 2018 and he's a she, of course

Republicans have been casting about for someone to blame for their rapid succession of moral, ideological and legislative failures ever since Donald Trump settled into the Oval Office. No longer tethered together by their favorite scapegoat, Barack Obama, their ship has become unmoored amid a fleet of sinking campaign promises. The one thing on which they seem to agree is that they have to give their base someone to latch on to lest their glaring incompetency become the focus of 2018. So behold—Elizabeth Warren is the new Barack Obama, writes Pema Levy.

Republicans have decided to use Warren as a sort of boogeyman ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, when 10 Democratic senators are up for reelection in states Donald Trump won. By late February, the committee tasked with electing Republicans to the Senate launched digital ads attacking vulnerable Democrats by stating how often they had voted with Warren. [...]

Warren, a household name and an unapologetic liberal, is an easy choice. Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist in Washington, DC, says going after Warren is part of the Republican playbook for 2020, as well. "Always define your opponent before your opponent can define you," he says.

The notion that the GOP will be able to do anything whatsoever to distract voters from the governing meltdown they are now witnessing at the hands of Republicans is laughable. "Hey voters, forget that Russia-installed marionette occupying the White House and our health reform catastrophe seven years in the making—look over there at Elizabeth Warren. Now, that's one scary chick!" Gimme a break. Republicans releasing digital ads as early as last month is proof positive that they have to get a jump on campaigning because they’ve already hit the wall on governing.

And if they think Warren will be a disaster in red states, that's certainly not what Missouri Democrat Jason Kander found during his 2016 Senate run. After deploying Warren in emails and at fundraisers, Kander campaign manager Abe Rakov says, bring it!

"After she was here, we saw our volunteer numbers go up, we saw our fundraising go up," he recalls. Over the course the election, he says, Kander's campaign had built up "a lot of evidence that it was sort of a Republican myth that she would cause us problems."

Dream on, GOP.