When you can't defend your own record of runaway spending, higher taxes and government takeover of health care, you go on the attack and smear your opponents. That's the strategy the Democratic Party is developing for November.

From a story in The Washington Post by Philip Rucker:

Democratic leaders unveiled a plan Wednesday to link the Republican Party to some of the most extreme elements of the "tea party" movement, seeking to define all GOP candidates as outside the mainstream by highlighting such tea party talking points as ending Medicare and privatizing Social Security.

With lawmakers preparing to head home to their districts to campaign during the August recess, Democratic leaders sought to demonstrate that all Republicans are cut from the same cloth as such tea party favorites as Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle and Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, flanked by a half-dozen House members, released "The Republican Tea Party Contract on America," a 10-point list created by the DNC that Kaine warned would become the Republican agenda if the GOP were to return to power after the November midterm elections.

Read the full story here.