Al Franken took his seat in the Senate this week, a gift of comedy from the muddled voters of my state, and with it, Democrats have the magic number in the Senate with which to control the flow of legislation. The NRSC decided to mark the occasion with a fundraising effort to ensure that Democrats only have that situation in place for 18 months:

I like the ad, with a couple of reservations, one minor, one more serious. First, the minor point: checks and balances should come from the Constitutional exercise of prerogatives of each branch. Political parties don’t serve that function. Practically speaking, though, it amounts to the same thing, just as it did from 2001-6, we should recall.

The more serious point: we need to certainly run hard against Democrats, but we also need to give voters reasons to vote for Republicans.  The recent Rasmussen poll of GOP voters show financial and economic issues rank highest with 60% of them, and presumably Democrats will be feeling the same way after a month or two more of Obamanomics.  There’s nothing wrong with this ad, as long as it’s followed by ads laying out Republican principles for economic growth, fiscal responsibility, and getting government out of energy production.  The NRSC has time to do that, but they and the RNC need to start soon in getting out a positive message for Republican campaigns.