How Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters react to Obama's candidacy will define us all in ways that today can hardly be imagined. While most Republicans (and many Democrats too) seem to be concentrating on present and narrowly defined victory, the real issue is how we all will be perceived in the future. Our great, great grandchildren will pass judgment on us, and so will the world.

Simply put: Republican strategists who think that business-as-usual -- i.e., the slanderous politics of the past 30 years -- will take care of matters this time around are deluded. Worse than that, they will doom the reputation of the Republican Party and turn it into a marginal footnote of American history if they keep trivializing this historic event. That is too bad because, as I said, we need a two party system.

Let's re-iterate that: Schaeffer believes that tearing down Obama using the standard tactics is going to backfire so strongly that it could turn people away from the Republican party for generations.  Certainly with Ron Paul's movement, Campaign for Liberty ( http://www.campaignforliberty.com/ ), there are forces at work trying to fix the corruption and loss of message that has resulted from the Republicans glutting themselves on power for so many years.

He gives some handy advice to his former compatriots:

1. Categorically repudiate and denounce the sort of slime attacks that are already being mounted against Obama and his wife until they stop.

2. Refuse to go along with the snickering half-wits at places like FOX News. They will take you down with them into well deserved oblivion.

3. Pay homage to what Obama means to America and what his candidacy stand for in the same way that Obama pays homage to McCain's Vietnam War service and do so often and where it counts.

4. Decide now that it would be better to lose this election than win a race-based or innuendo-based pyrrhic victory that decimates the Republican Party's (or angry Clinton fans') reputation forever.

5. Debate the issues, not the man. The point is not to belittle Obama. You can't. He's already a giant of American history and became such just by getting this far in a country that was still lynching black men in our parents' lifetimes. But that doesn't mean that you have to agree. Say that his tax hikes will hurt. Say that his medical coverage is going to cost. There are real issues. Call him on those if you will. And experience is a legitimate issue too. But stay out of the slime.

6. Don't be too clever by half. Play even the hint of the race card, no matter how cutely or while pretending innocence, and you're toast.

With the backlash that's hit FOX of late over the stupid "baby mama" and "terrorist fist-jab" remarks, I'm starting to think that Mr. Schaeffer here has a point.

The Republicans won't go down easily, and surely they won't go down alone, but some people that know the movement quite well are starting to think that they're in serious trouble if they treat Obama like Kerry or Dukakis.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-scha effer/a-warning-to-my-old-repub_b_106676 .html

Check the full article; the guy is 100% won over by Obama.