The current meme: conservatives are "extremists"

  Even FNC is going with the latest meme from the left wing today.
  Now conservatives are "extremists" whose agendas are scary, suspect and dangerous to the country, even though a great number of Americans have exactly the same views on things like outrageous spending, government control, and religious views that threaten people's lives.
  Tea Partiers are, of course, a primary target using the Alinski model of freezing, isolating and attacking a target. Unfortunately for leftists, the Tea Party movement has evolved into a patriot movement. Many have moved past the idea of a "Tea Party" and on to simply becoming patriots who are now active in local and national politics. Community organizers, you might say.
  But the idea that any conservative idea is "extreme" is antithetical to the idea of being conservative. By nature, American conservatives do not intrude where they are not wanted. By nature, conservatives do not speak out against others. By nature, conservatives do not want to control the lives of others because that would entail both snooping and constant intervention.
  Howard Fineman (leftist commentator) talked about leftist strategy at RCP:

Fineman reveals that the Democratic strategy for the presidential and Congressional elections will be "down and dirty." 
"It's not going to be a 'Morning in America' campaign, it's going to be a darkness at midnight campaign about the Republicans. It's going to be about the fact that the Republicans in Congress pushed Paul Ryan's bill Medicare, about how they pushed Cut, Cap and Balance. It's about how Republicans wanted to dismantle Wall Street reform. It's going to be about how the Republican presidential candidates have embraced the Tea Party."

  The reason the campaign strategy is "darkness at midnight" is twofold: it really IS darkness at midnight accelerated by this administration's regressive business policies and regulations. AND these people are so dark themselves that their only option is to paint their opponents as even darker than themselves.
  Hey, dopes. People are depressed enough already.
  Do you really think this is a winning strategy?
  Your policies don't work. Admit it. Change and move on.
  We can hope. 
  But opponents of this administration are stupid, don't forget. Anyone who runs against a Democrat is stupid, according to the elitists among us. 
  Politico accuses Perry of being "dumb":

Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual.
Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?”

And Bill Keller at the NY Times worries that Christians might try to emulate jihadists:

Surveying those articles, the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, concludes that "an unusually large number" of Republican candidates "belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans." Perry and Bachmann, in particular, are connected to "fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity," which Keller says "has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction." Fearing that Perry or Bachmann could be a "Trojan horse" for a religious takeover of the government, Keller advocates strict questioning of candidates on doctrinal issues.

  Mysterious or suspect to many Americans? That would be Mr. Keller's friends who view all Christians and conservatives as "mysterious and suspect" since they know no one who is one. For those of us out here in the Heartland, Christianity is a way of life, not a mystery.
  So the extremists in the White House are not; those of us who believe in God and the value of this country are.
  Sounds like they're trying to muck us up, if you ask me.