We all know about the troubles facing congressional Republicans. But never mind all of that, the party says. Now, they’ve crafted a comeback plan.

Confronting a dire outlook for next year’s elections, House Republicans have begun to fight back with a new three-pronged strategy: painting the new Democratic majority as part of an unpopular Washington status quo, forcing Democrats to make unpopular votes on tough issues and locking arms around a new GOP issues agenda. […]

Brian Kennedy, communications director for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the GOP plans to portray its opponents as “the same old tax-and-spend Democratic Party people remember from the 1970s.”

That’s it? Wedge issues and “tax and spend”?

Republicans, in other words, plan to do exactly what they’ve been doing for the better part of my lifetime. This isn’t a “three-pronged strategy,” so much as it’s “the only play in the playbook.”