Republican Congressional candidate Brendan Doherty has worked hard to carve out a reputation as a moderate above party; a man disgusted with Washington's partisan gridlock.
That kind of image is vital, of course, if a GOPer is to win election in a blue state. Hence, one of the strategic imperatives of the Democratic nominee: make Doherty a Republican.
That means a relentless effort to tie him to the Republican hierarchy in Washington and, if possible, to the Tea Party wing of the party. Congressman David Cicilline's campaign is already selling the line hard; his Democratic challenger, businessman Anthony Gemma, has been more restrained.
It is, as I've argued before, an easier sell for Cicilline, who is more closely aligned with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party than Gemma, who sits somewhere near the middle of the political spectrum. Indeed, the line Gemma has been trying out for the general election has him as the private sector exemplar of job creation and Doherty as the public sector hack.
Both lines of attack will require some salesmanship.
Doherty's message of moderation, moderation, moderation makes it difficult for Cicilline to paint him as a wild-eyed Tea Partyer. Instead, the Cicilline camp will have to perform a two-step: as Cicilline's campaign manager Eric Hyers argued in a recent interview, it doesn't matter if a Congressman Doherty would break from GOP orthodoxy from time to time, he would be a vote to keep Speaker of the House John Boehner in power and he would, as a result, empower a broader Republican Party that's gone off the deep end.
Gemma, meanwhile, will have to stamp an image of hackery on a widely respected public servant; Doherty was the ramrod straight superintendent of the state police before he left the post to run for Congress. Moreover, the businessman, by posing as the private-sector job creator, may find himself trying to out-Republican the Republican.
Neither path seems a slam dunk - especially with Doherty raising significant sums. But Cicilline's camp can, at least, point to precedent. After all, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse was able to unseat popular moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee in 2006 with a similar he's-a-vote-for-the-GOP-hierarchy campaign.
The only difference: Whitehouse could tie Chafee to then-President George W. Bush. The target, this time around, is not quite so plum.