GOP election strategy: "Beat the drum of fear"

Although the politics of fear is said to be "losing its punch," look for Republicans, knowing full well the congressional and presidential tide may be turning against them, to "beat the drum of fear" to get re-elected this fall. The strategy is illustrated through Bush's recent speech where, despite the fact that the al-Qaeda leader's trail has gone "stone cold," he uttered Osama bin Laden's name 17 times or through Bush's request for TV airtime--to commemorate the fight anniversary of 9/11 with a televised speech--one minute into the final hour of the hugely contested documdrama The Path to 9/11 on ABC. It's also touched on by this graphic, which in an Onion-y kind of way has a lot of truth about the "coincidental" raising of terror alert levels at key moments of past elections, dips in Bush's approval ratings and pivotal times around news cycles: