As I said yesterday, Rudy Giuliani may have vanished from the spotlight for the time being, but we still have the entire rest of the Republican party to question the president's motives.
According to a new YouGov poll, only 11 percent of self-identified Republicans believe President Obama "loves America."
YouGov's latest research shows that Americans do tend to think that Barack Obama does, in fact, love America. 47% say that the president loves America, while 35% agree with Rudy Giuliani that the president does not. There is a predictably large partisan divide on the issue, however, with 85% of Democrats saying that he loves America and 69% of Republicans saying that he does not. Independents are roughly divided on the issue, with 42% saying he loves the country and 38% saying he doesn't.
There have been a number of unconvincing attempts among the beltway media to say that Giuliani is a fringe figure who does not represent the average Republican voter, but there's no evidence to support that. On the contrary, Giuliani is perfectly emblematic of the entire party.
If I were a Republican campaign operative I would be concerned because questioning the president's patriotism could become a litmus test for winning Republican primaries.
I would not be surprised to see a scenario in which the president's patriotism is questioned in South Carolina but not questioned in New Hampshire.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got out ahead of the pack by simply shrugging his shoulders when asked if the president loves America.
The fortunate or unfortunate truth for the Republican party, depending on your perspective, is that President Obama is not running for a third term. Running against President Obama in 2016 will not be as beneficial to the GOP as running against George W. Bush was for Democrats in 2008, but that seems to be where they're headed.