What Republicans Do Best!

Congress has gone home for an August recess so that members can campaign for re-election. But about a dozen House Republicans are staying behind to occupy the House floor so they can score publicity points for their "Drill Here, Drill Now" energy agenda.

Continuing with their guerilla tactics from last week, House Republicans will be back on the floor Monday to talk gas prices, even though Congress is in recess, and they may stay there all week.

This kind of stunt is pretty clever. There's also a cleverness to Republicans using tire gauges as symbols for ridiculing the moralistic dimension of Obama. John McCain's "Celeb" and "Moses" ads are also ingenious in the ways they use racial stereotyping to make fun of Obama.

And, as usual, the Democrats are slow and uncertain in their responses.

But the last couple of weeks have also witnessed the Republicans at their absolute peak. This kind of humorous publicity-seeking stunts, ridicule, and stereotyping is what the Republicans do best.

When it comes to campaigning, the Republicans are always taking the initiative, clever, funny, and nimble.

But Republican campaign skills have not translated well to running the government.

In fact, one of the defining qualities of the Bush administration has been disinterest. The Bush people just weren't very interested in administering departments like the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture, managing important programs like FEMA, or seeing after the work of government more generally.

That's a big reason why the Bush administration did such a poor job with Katrina.

As a result, one of the big questions of this election is whether the party that runs a really clever campaign is actually capable of governing.